Yii2: standalone action does not work in event handler - php

Question

I'm a beginner in Yii, so don't know, how to solve my problem in most correct way.
There are 2 controllers - SiteController and UsersController. I need to retrieve some data from DB and output it in layout. In particular, if user1 and user2 added user3 as friend, user3 will see it on main menu panel:
User have to see it regardless of controller, action of which is running (in pic above user sees /site/profile page, but a lot of other pages (in particular invitations) render by users controller).
I wrote the same actions in 2 controllers:
public function getStats () { //it duplicates in UsersController and SiteController
$recieved_invitations = Invitations::find()->where(['recipient_id'=>\Yii::$app->user->id])->all();
...
return [$recieved_invitations_count, $received_docs_count];
}
I decided, that, if count need to be in every page, I need trigger it regardless of controllers. So, I wrote in wep.php:
'on beforeAction' => function ($event) {
\Yii::$app->session->set('stats', $event->sender->controller->getStats());
}
And then in menu in layout I retrieve session vars.
Everything works fine. But getStats() action duplicates in controllers. I want to do it standalone.
//action code (in '#app/components' folder) (just from documentation):
namespace app\components;
use yii\base\Action;
class HelloWorldAction extends Action {
public function run() {
return "Hello World";
}
}
//in 'actions()' in controllers:
parent::actions();
return [
'hv' => [
'class' => 'app\components\HelloWorldAction',
]
];
//in 'web.php':
'on beforeAction' => function ($event) {
\Yii::$app->session->set('stats', $event->sender->controller->hv());
}
But exception throws: Calling unknown method: app\controllers\UsersController::hv(). Also: if I disable urlManager in config. file and comment out beforeAction handler, action is accessible via this URL:
http://localhost:8001/index.php?r=users%2Fhv
Why standalone action fails, if it triggers on beforeAction event? And, if it's normal behaviour, what can I do to avoid duplicating getStats() method?

Answer 1

I would actually try to move the getStats method to your User model, that way you can just access it from anywhere in your application by calling it like this:
Yii::$app->user->identity->stats;
// OR
Yii::$app->user->identity->getStats();
It's usually better to have fat models, simple controllers and views.