Setting local variables cleanly in a MVC pattern in PHP - php

Question

I am experimenting with using the MVC pattern to set local vars in some code ie
$action=basename(__FILE__, '.php'); // load action from filename for consistancy (index for this case)
$controller = new seoController($action . '-seo'); // register controller with page action and parameter
$controller->invoke(); // invoke controller for processing
$page_title = "<insert page title here>";
$page_desc = "<insert page desc here>";
$page_keys = "<insert page keywords here>";
Of course the controller calls the model and does all the backend stuff parsing the input, getting the data and then returning.
What I would like is a clean way to set the local $page_title etc vars from the seoModel that is instantiated in setController without using the $_SESSION or any other hacky kind of way.
Is it ok from a design POV to put methods in the controller to get the info? ie
$page_title = seoController->getPageTitle();
My controllers as of now are not being used in this type of way as all they do is connect my models to the views.
I hope I'm being clear enough with my explanation.

Answer 1

Is it ok from a design POV to put methods in the controller to get the info?
Yes, thats what Controller is meant for.
What I would like is a clean way to set the local $page_title etc vars from the seoModel that is instantiated in setController without using the $_SESSION or any other hacky kind of way.
To avoid using $_SESSION that seems to be a bit overkill for this particular case you can set seoController attributes, for example,
Class seoController
{
$public $page_tile = '';
public method getPageTitle()
{
$model = new seoModel();
$page_title = $model->get_page_title();
$this->page_tile = $page_title;
//you could also return the page title here, skipping that
}
}
And access them from the caller
$controller = new seoController;
$controller->getPageTitle();
$page_title = $controller->page_title;

Answer 2

You would normally have things like meta tags stored with the model it’s describing. So if you’re loading say, a product from a model, then that model may also return the meta tags for that product:
public function show($productId)
{
$product = $this->productModel->findById($productId);
// Meta title may be available at $product->meta_title
return new ViewModel(array(
'product' => $product,
));
}
Your controller action would then return the data needed to be displayed in a view, which could be a HTML template, JSON, XML etc.