This is my long quest to develop web apps using core PHP and follow the best possible practices and not using a framework. I have achieved many things by structuring my project a better way. However ...getting a clean URL is often a problem for large apps.
Till now...I have used the Slim Framework only for creating RESTFUL services outside my web apps.
I am using Slim Framework to create APIs for a PHP project. Now, I have an install of Slim up and running fine. I have my routes talking to the database and doing what they're supposed to do, generally. My question has to do with modularizing the code. At the moment, all my routes are defined in my index.php file in the root directory. I would very much like to separate these out, say into a /controllers folder.
As I liked the way Slim makes pretty good URLs...I am wondering if it is possible to use Slim as my app architecture ...and let all my pages or APIs be accessible through the Slim index.php.
Yes pretty easily here are the steps I have taken on a recent project.
First lets say your have a HomeActionController
class HomeActionController {
//The below line I have moved into an abstract Controller class
public $view = null;
//This is using Slim Views PhpRenderer
//This allows for a controller to render views can be whatever you need
//I did not like the idea of passing the whole DC it seemed overkill
//The below method I have moved into an abstract Controller class
public function __construct(\Slim\Views\PhpRenderer $view = null){
if($view != null){
$this->view = $view;
}
}
//View could be any action method you want to call it.
public function view(Request $request, Response $response, array $args){
$data['user'] = "John Doe";
return $this->view->render($response, 'templates/home.php', $data);
}
}
Now you need to be able to call an instance of this controller from a route so you need to add the controllers you have to the DC
Where ever you are creating your instance of slim you will need to get the DC and add an instance of your controller:
$app = new \Slim\App($config['slim']);
// Get Dependency Container for Slim
$container = $app->getContainer();
$container['HomeActionController'] = new Controller\HomeActionController($container['view']); //Notice passing the view
As a note the above instantiations could have been a closures but I did not see the point at the time or making them. Also, there are ways to lazy load that I have not explored yet see here for more information.
Now the last thing you need to do is be able to call these on the routes which is not a huge challenge.
$app->get('/home', 'HomeActionController:view');
Granted you cannot have an action with parameters but I have not had an issue just passing them along in the request and then getting them from there.
If you want to create a app with no framework, then i would recommend looking through this small github repo:
https://github.com/PatrickLouys/no-framework-tutorial
It goes through with you settings everything up in terms of routing, plus would make everything go through the index.php in a public folder like your asking.
Related
This may be a dumb question, but I've started exploring Laravel Breeze with vue and I'm not sure how to manage resources and their views. (Using Laravel 9)
For example, if I have a table 'members' and a resource controller 'MemberController', ordinarily in the web.php file I would do something like:
Route::resource('members', MemberController::class)->names('members');
Then I'd create a 'member' folder in my resource/views folder to store the views for that table. I could then call the view from the MemberController something like:
public function index()
{
$members = Member::all();
return view('member.index', compact('members'));
}
I'm trying to do something similar using vue in breeze, so I guess I'd have the vue pages in the 'resources/js/Pages' folder. But this didn't seem to work properly.
I don't know how to transition from the previous approach of handling resources and views to Breeze using vue.
What's the recommended way to handle resources in an SPA with Breeze/vue?
After following Djave's suggestion, I took a look at the sample app from inertia.js and that answered everything.
The problem I had was due to using the dot notation when specifying the path to the vue page. So, in my example above, it should instead be like this:
return view('Member/Index', compact('members'));
The inertia sample app code has a lot of good examples!
I am working on a newly created Phalcon project, and I don't really know how to actually use multiples views.
What is the entry point? I don't really know when each method in the controller is called, under which conditions, etc.
Where is the control flow defined? is it based in the name of the view? or is there a place where you can register them?
Phalcon is a bit different than other well-known PHP frameworks, in that not much is pre-configured or pre-built by default. It's quite loosely-coupled. So you have to decide where and how your control flow will work. This means that you will need to dig deeper in the documentation and also that there could be different way to achieve the same thing.
I'm going to walk you through a simple example and provide references, so you can understand it more.
1) You would start by defining a bootstrap file (or files) that will define the routes, or entry points, and will setup and create the application. This bootstrap file could be called by an index.php file that is the default file served by the web server. Here is an example of how such bootstrap file will define the routes or entry points (note: these are just fragments and do not represent all the things that a bootstrap file should do):
use Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault;
// initializes the dependency injector of Phalcon framework
$injector = new FactoryDefault();
// defines the routes
$injector->setShared('router', function () {
return require_once('some/path/routes.php');
});
Then it the routes.php file:
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Group as RouterGroup;
// instantiates the router
$router = new Router(false);
// defines routes for the 'users' controller
$user_routes = new RouterGroup(['controller' => 'users']);
$user_routes->setPrefix('/users');
$user_routes->addGet('/show/{id:[0-9]{1,9}}', ['action' => 'show']);
$router->mount($user_routes);
return $router;
Im defining routes in an alternate way, by defining routes groups. I find it to be more easy to organize routes by resource or controller.
2) When you enter the url example.com/users/show/123, the routes above will match this to the controller users and action show. This is specified by the chunks of code ['controller' => 'users'], setPrefix('/users') and '/show/{id:[0-9]{1,9}}', ['action' => 'show']
3) So now you create the controller. You create a file in, let's say, controllers/UsersController.php. And then you create its action; note the name that you used in the route (show) and the suffix of Action:
public function showAction(int $id) {
// ... do all you need to do...
// fetch data
$user = UserModel::findFirst(blah blah);
// pass data to view
$this->view->setVar('user', $user);
// Phalcon automatically calls the view; from the manual:
/*
Phalcon automatically passes the execution to the view component as soon as a particular
controller has completed its cycle. The view component will look in the views folder for
a folder named as the same name of the last controller executed and then for a file named
as the last action executed.
*/
// but in case you would need to specify a different one
$this->view->render('users', 'another_view');
}
There is much more stuff related to views; consult the manual.
Note that you will need to register such controller in the bootstrap file like (Im also including examples on how to register other things):
use Phalcon\Loader;
// registers namespaces and other classes
$loader = new Loader();
$loader->registerNamespaces([
'MyNameSpace\Controllers' => 'path/controllers/',
'MyNameSpace\Models' => 'path/models/',
'MyNameSpace\Views' => 'path/views/'
]);
$loader->register();
4) You will also need to register a few things for the views. In the bootstrap file
use Phalcon\Mvc\View;
$injector->setShared('view', function () {
$view = new View();
$view->setViewsDir('path/views/');
return $view;
});
And this, together with other things you will need to do, particularly in the bootstrap process, will get you started in sending requests to the controller and action/view defined in the routes.
Those were basic examples. There is much more that you will need to learn, because I only gave you a few pieces to get you started. So here are some links that can explain more. Remember, there are several different ways to achieve the same thing in Phalcon.
Bootstrapping:
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/di
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/loader
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/dispatcher
Routing: https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/routing
Controllers: https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/controllers
More on Views (from registering to passing data to them, to templating and more): https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/views
And a simple tutorial to teach you some basic things: https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/tutorial-rest
The application begins with the routing stage. From there you grab the controller and action from the router, and feed it to the dispatcher. You set the view then call the execute the dispatcher so it access your controller's action. From there you create a new response object and set its contents equal to the view requests, and finally send the response to the client's browser -- both the content and the headers. It's a good idea to do this through Phalcon rather than echoing directly or using PHP's header(), so it's only done at the moment you call $response->send(); This is best practice because it allows you to create tests, such as in phpunit, so you can test for the existence of headers, or content, while moving off to the next response and header without actually sending anything so you can test stuff. Same idea with exit; in code, is best to avoid so you can write tests and move on to the next test without your tests aborting on the first test due to the existence of exit.
As far as how the Phalcon application works, and in what steps, it's much easier to follow the flow by looking at manual bootstrapping:
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/application#manual-bootstrapping
At the heart of Phalcon is the DI, the Dependency Injection container. This allows you to create services, and store them on the DI so services can access each other. You can create your own services and store them under your own name on the DI, there's nothing special about the names used. However depending on the areas of Phalcon you used, certain services on the DI are assumed like "db" for interacting with your database. Note services can be set as either shared or not shared on the DI. Shared means it implements singleton and keeps the object alive for all calls afterwards. If you use getShared, it does a similar thing even if it wasn't initially a shared service. The getShared method is considered bad practice and the Phalcon team is talking about removing the method in future Phalcon versions. Please rely on setShared instead.
Regarding multiple views, you can start with $this->view->disable(); from within the controller. This allows you to disable a view so you don't get any content generated to begin with from within a controller so you can follow how views work from within controllers.
Phalcon assumes every controller has a matching view under /someController/someView followed by whatever extension you registered on the view, which defaults to .volt but can also be set to use .phtml or .php.
These two correspond to:
Phalcon\Mvc\View\Engine\Php and Phalcon\Mvc\View\Engine\Volt
Note that you DON'T specify the extension when looking for a template to render, Phalcon adds this for you
Phalcon also uses a root view template index.volt, if it exists, for all interactions with the view so you can use things like the same doctype for all responses, making your life easier.
Phalcon also offers you partials, so from within a view you can render a partial like breadcrumbs, or a header or footer which you'd otherwise be copy-pasting into each template. This allows you to manage all pages from the same template so you're not repeating yourself.
As far as which view class you use within Phalcon, there's two main choices:
Phalcon\Mvc\View and Phalcon\Mvc\View\Simple
While similar, Phalcon\Mvc\View gives you a multiple level hierarchy as described before with a main template, and a controller-action based template as well as some other fancy features. As far as Phalcon\Mvc\View\Simple, it's much more lightweight and is a single level.
You should be familiar with hierarchical rendering:
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/views#hierarchical-rendering
The idea is with Phalcon\Mvc\View that you have a Main Layout (if this template exists) usually stored in /views/index.volt, which is used on every page so you can toss in your doctypes, the title (which you would set with a variable the view passed in), etc. You'd have a Controller Layout, which would be stored under /views/layouts.myController.volt and used for every action within a controller (if this template exists), finally you'd have the Action Layout which is used for the specific action of the controller in /views/myController/myAction.volt.
There are all types of ways you can break from Phalcon's default behavior. You can do the earlier stated $this->view->disable(); so you can do everything manually yourself so Phalcon doesn't assume anything about the view template. You can also use ->pick to pick which template to use if it's going to be different than the controller and action it's ran in.
You can also return a response object from within a controller and Phalcon will not try to render the templates and use the response object instead.
For example you might want to do:
return $this->response->redirect('index/index');
This would redirect the user's browser to said page. You could also do a forward instead which would be used internally within Phalcon to access a different controller and/or action.
You can config the directory the views are stored with setViewsDir. You can also do this from within the controller itself, or even within the view as late as you want, if you have some exceptions due to a goofy directory structure.
You can do things like use $this->view->setTemplateBefore('common') or $this->view->setTemplateAfter('common'); so you can have intermediate templates.
At the heart of the view hierarchy is <?php echo $this->getContent(); ?> or {{ content() }} if you're using Volt. Even if you're using Volt, it gets parsed by Phalcon and generates the PHP version with $this->getContent(), storing it in your /cache/ directory, before it is executed.
The idea with "template before" is that it's optional if you need another layer of hierarchy between your main template and your controller template. Same idea with "template after" etc. I would advise against using template before and after as they are confusing and partials are better suited for the task.
It all depends on how you want to organize your application structure.
Note you can also swap between your main template to another main template if you need to swap anything major. You could also just toss in an "if" statement into your main template to decide what to do based on some condition, etc.
With all that said, you should be able to read the documentation and make better sense of how to utilize it:
https://docs.phalconphp.com/en/3.2/api/Phalcon_Mvc_View
I am trying to use Symfony to replicate behavior in an existing Framework (zikula). This framework is extensible using modules which are basically extended symphony bundles. The old framework had urls like so
index.php?module=foo&type=bar&func=zip
which in symfony speak roughly translates to
index.php?bundle=foo&controller=bar&method=zip
The framework has an AbstractController which has a magic method like:
public function __call($method, $args)
{
$event = new \Zikula\Core\Event\GenericEvent($this, array('method' => $method, 'args' => $args));
$this->eventManager->dispatch('controller.method_not_found', $event);
if ($event->isPropagationStopped()) {
return $event->getData();
}
}
so, if you created a url with a method that didn't exist in the bundle, you could create a listener to capture it and send a response that looks like and behaves like it came from the specified bundle. We use this to call module services that are available to all modules and provided in a separate module but look like they are served by the 'host' module.
Now I am trying to replicates this using symfony and routing.
the first problem is generating a route that doesn't technically exist. Is this possible?
The second problem is capturing the RouteNotFoundException (which I know how to do, we already have listeners for other exceptions).
The last problem is making it appear that the bundle is serving up the response when it is actually being served by an event listener (or something else). This last part is important because other content in the response needs to come from the module/bundle.
I have tried changing the current listener to a controller, and also tried adding a method to our extension of symfony's AbstractController, but haven't yet achieved what I am hoping to achieve. I'm hoping for some suggestions on new ideas or methods to try.
I gave up trying to replicate the exact behavior as it seems impossible (it is also pretty difficult to describe). So I have resorted to a normal controller with standard route, but I found a way to make it appear to belong to the original 'host' module. Thanks to Gerry, ggioffreda and DerStoffel for offering ideas.
Is it generally a good idea to interact with database in view layer in MVC frameworks?
I'm using Laravel 4.
I want to show some data from database at top of all website's pages.
I have a main.blade.php and: #include("inc.header")
If I should, how can I connect to database from inc/header.php in right way?
I don't want make multiple connections one here at header.php and one in my pages controllers.
I'm more familiar with PDO than Laravel's database methods and ORMs.
Any advice is appreciated!
Edit
Friends gave nice advice and answers about MVC and Laravel workflow, but my main concern is still here.
Ok I have used controllers and models to get required data, then as I said, it should be present for the view layer in every page, So should I repeat the same task to get the same data in All my controllers' actions? (I guess that's why we have Filters here! then again, is it ok to use db in Laravel filters? using a model?)
Thanks in advance :)
Never do anything more than loop thru your data in your view layer. Basically a normal MVC pattern in laravel could be something like this:
It all begins with the routing layer (which btw. is fantastic in laravel)
Using closures
Route::get('/home', function()
{
//Here data is an array, normally you would fetch data
//from your database here and pass it to the View.
$data = array('this', 'is', 'my', 'data-array');
return View::make('my.view')->with(compact('data');
});
Using controllers (and a controller method)
//the same route is bound to a controller method
Route::get('/home','HomeController#myFunction');
The controller for the above could look something like this:
<?php
class HomeController extends BaseController {
//The function you call from your route
public function myFunction()
{
$data = array('this', 'is', 'my', 'data-array');
return View::make('my.view')->with(compact('data');
}
}
The above example just shows the VC in MVC, but generally you pass data from your models in the same way.
Heres a quick one:
Model usage in controllers
public function myFunction($user)
{
$userdata = User::find($user)->orderBy('firstname', 'desc');
$infodata = Event::find(1)->course;
return View::make('my.view')->with(compact('data', 'infodata');
}
So the idea is that laravel lets you do things in multiple ways. If you have a minor app, and are sure that you can manage without controllers you could skip the controller and keep everything in your routing layer.
For most apps however the controllers are needed for controlling the dataflow in the application.
If you are totally new to MVC you should check out some tuts on the subject.
EDIT:
Ahaa! So you wanted to share some piece of data in all your views! Well thats simple. Because all your controllers extend the BaseController you can simply pass in the data in there. Like so:
class BaseController extends Controller {
public function __construct()
{
$data = array('alot', 'of', 'data');
return View::share('data', $data);
}
}
Now the data variable is available in all the views.
PS. Filters are meant to filter stuff, like to check if certain things are "ok". This could include to check authed users, or form submissions etc.
There is another solution that is especially handy for cases like yours. If you have 15 routes that all ultimately include the inc.header view... well you can see where this is going. You'll have data logic repeated in several places. Patrik suggested using the BaseController which is a good solution but I prefer to use a composer.
View::composer('inc.header', function ($view)
{
$view->some_data = MyModel::where(...)->get();
});
It doesn't get much easier then that. :)
Is it generally a good idea to interact with database in view layer in MVC frameworks?
No, you don't interact with your database (model) in your view layer. MVC stands for "Model View Controller" to separate logic, application data and business rules of your application.
If I should, how can I connect to database from inc/header.php in right way?
I don't want make multiple connections one here at header.php and one in my pages controllers.
You could create a main layout (containing your header) and use this layout for all the pages of your application:
app/views/
layouts/main.blade.php
page1.blade.php
layouts/main.blade.php:
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>
<div>Your header that will be included in each of your pages</div>
<!-- The content of the current page: -->
#yield('body')
</body>
</html>
page1.blade.php:
#extends('layouts.main')
#section('body')
<div>The content of your page</div>
#stop
Learn more about the Blade templating engine.
Now where do you fetch your data?
The fastest/easiest way to develop is to use the routes as Controllers and as your application evolves you start refactoring your code and create Controllers.
app/routes.php:
Route::get('page1', function(){
//Fetch your data the way you prefer: SQL, Fluent or Eloquent (Laravel ORM)
//$data = DB::select('select * from yourtable');
$data = YourModel::all();
//Pass your data to the view
return View::make('page1')
->with('data', $data);
});
The data can be fetch using Fluent class or Eloquent ORM.
I suggest you to learn the basics of Laravel to properly create the base of your application so it will be really easy to maintain in the future.
The answer and issue here is not so simple. First have just been introduced to MVC and trying to understand the basic concept, the flow for MVC is Controller->Model->View. Here we see that the data is passed from the model directly to the View. The current examples of how to use Laravel MVC is to have the Model return data to controller making the flow as follows: Conntroller->Model-Controller->View. Here we see that the model and view are not aware of each other. A qucik look on wikipedia show that this type of modeling and controlling is know has MVA. The A is for adapter and also known as mediating controller, so now we are back to the answer here. Should we be using MVA or MVC? How would one achieve true MVC in Laravel? Answer is to use {{Form:model}} facade for true MVC. But then what happens if the view changes? should we be calling model from the view to get the new data? Answer is no, if the view has to change then user should have caused a controller to react kicking off a new cycle of MVC. So what we can see here a mix of MVC and MVA using the Laravel framework, can achieve a highly customized flow based on the needs of the site.
I have a website with many scripts written in "pure" PHP, i.e. no specific framework has been used to write the files. Furthermore, all the URLs are custom using .htaccess and specific PHP scripts.
For a smooth transition, I would like to start using CodeIgniter for new pages without disrupting access to the old pages, but all the documentation I've seen on CodeIgniter gives the impression that the whole website (perhaps with a few exceptions) needs to be based on the framework.
Would it be possible to use the framework for single pages here and there while leaving old URLs and code intact?
Short answer, yes.
You could access the CI framework from a subfolder, for instance, leaving the existing site untouched.
i.e
www.site.com/my_new_app/controller/method/
where my_new_app is the renamed application folder.
I'm going to go on the assumption that you already have a basic template system in place, and are able to render full pages with your existing site. Since Codeigniter is really just a framework, there's nothing to stop you from using vanilla php, like include, or additional libraries and classes. So, one thing you can do is dump your site into a sub directory in your views folder, then create a "master" controller which does nothing but load full html pages.
class Master extends CI_Controller {
function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
}
function index()
{
// We're expecting something like "registration/how-to-apply" here
// Whatever your URL is. The .php extension is optional
$args = func_get_args();
$path = 'path_to_my_old_site/'.explode('/', $args);
$this->load->view($path);
}
}
// Then use this in config/routes.php
$route['(:any)'] = 'master/index/$1';
This will route all pages through the master controller. So, yoursite.com/pages/faq will load the file application/views/old_site/pages/faq.php. You can apply different routes as you see fit.
This way, you can take your time migrating to use Codeigniter conventions, one page at a time.