This being the worst title imaginable, let me explain my concern as best as I can. So basically in my framework I use URLs of the type site.com/controller/method/parameters
I'll take this page for example site.com/news/edit/12
Then, if I apply no routing, my controller's name has to be News, the called method will be edit with a single parameter 12. Then if, for the sake of demonstrating my concern, I decide to do editing of the news title and body in different pages, I would have to navigate to site.com/news/edit/12/title. Which is where it gets messy and is basically what I want to ask:
What is the proper way of including pages that depend on parameters passed to the controller?
IMHO this looks pretty ugly, and what if I have further more such page separations down the page tree
class News {
public function edit($id, $section){
if(method_exists($this, $section){
return $this->$section($id);
}
}
private function title($id){
// Display page to edit news title
}
private function body($id){
// Display page to edit news body
}
}
Not to mention that this can also cause potential problems with calling existing methods that are not supposed to be called.
Please don't execute methods dynamically based on get params. This can be very dangerous.
One simple way with standard routing:
// site.com/news/edit-title/12
public function editTitle($id);
// or depending on your framework
public function edit_title($id);
Another perhaps more cleaner solution would be to build your custom routes:
// site.com/news/edit/title/12
public function editTitle($id);
Related
I was wondering if there is a best practice for static pages in one controller. I thought about a PageController that handles all the pages. What is the best practice to do this dynamically? The pages only contain some text and html.
Generally it is personal preference as to where you want to put them, in a big system I will put them within a controller where they are relevant eg. If I have a TasksController and I have a static tasks information page, that would be within the TasksController. If it is a forward facing part of the system I generally have a WebsiteController which deals with anything visible to the public.
Another potential way is to redirect on the route itself using something like :
Route::view('/taskinfo', 'tasks.information');
It's really a matter of what best works for you. I prefer the first option.
You can achieved same on below code -
Route -
Route::get('/information/{id}','InformationController#show');
Controller Function -
public function show($id,Request $request)
{
$data = array();
$static_page_names = ['static1','static2']; //array that contains all static pages name
if(in_array($id, $static_page_names)){
//static page code here
return view('/pages/static_page_template',$data);
}else{
//dynamic code here
return view('/pages/dynamic_page_template',$data);
}
}
You can access the page from browser like-
website-url/information/id or website/information/static-page-name
Might be it will helpfull to you
I'm writing a control panel for my image site. I have a controller called category which looks like this:
class category extends ci_controller
{
function index(){}// the default and when it called it returns all categories
function edit(){}
function delete(){}
function get_posts($id)//to get all the posts associated with submitted category name
{
}
}
What I need is when I call http://mysite/category/category_name I get all the posts without having to call the get_posts() method having to call it from the url.
I want to do it without using the .haccess file or route.
Is there a way to create a method on the fly in CodeIgniter?
function index(){
$category = $this->uri->segment(2);
if($category)
{
get_posts($category); // you need to get id in there or before.
}
// handle view stuff here
}
The way I read your request is that you want index to handle everything based on whether or not there is a category in a uri segment. You COULD do it that way but really, why would you?
It is illogical to insist on NOT using a normal feature of a framework without explaining exactly why you don't want to. If you have access to this controller, you have access to routes. So why don't you want to use them?
EDIT
$route['category/:any'] = "category/get_posts";
That WOULD send edit and delete to get_posts, but you could also just define those above the category route
$route['category/edit/:num'] = "category/edit";
$route['category/delete/:num'] = "category/delete";
$route['category/:any'] = "category/get_posts";
That would resolve for the edit and delete before the category fetch. Since you only have 2 methods that conflict then this shouldn't really be that much of a concern.
To create method on the fly yii is the best among PHP framework.Quite simple and powerful with Gii & CRUD
http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/quickstart.first-app
But I am a big CI fan not Yii. yii is also cool though.
but Codeigniter has an alternative , web solution.
http://formigniter.org/ here.
In a MVC pattern, what's the best way to handle when a single view could have multiple actions of the same type (e.g POST)?
Say for instance in a TODO list application. You might allow a user to create multiple lists. Each list could have multiple items. So a user navigates to site.com/list/1 which shows them all the items on the 1st list (1 is a GET parameter). There are then 2 forms (POST) on this page to allow a user to:
Create a new item
Delete an existing item
Should the bootstrap create a "listcontroller", inspect the POST variables and then call the appropriate method similar to :
$lc = new ListController();
if(strtolower($request->verb) === 'post'):
if(isset($_POST['title'])) :
$data = $lc->newItem($_POST);
$load->view('newitem.php', $data);
else if(isset($_POST['delete']) && isset($_POST['id'])):
$data = $lc->deleteItem($_POST);
$load-view('deleteitem.php', $data);
endif;// End if post title
else:
//GET request here so show view for single list
endif; //
Or is it better to just do something like
$lc = new ListController();
if(isset($_POST)):
//controller handles logic about what function to call
$data = $lc->PostAction($_POST);
// $data could also potentially hold correct view name based on post
$load->view();
else:
//again just show single list
endif;
I'm just struggling how best to have a controller potentially handle multiple different actions, as there's potentially quite a few nested if/else or case statements to handle different scenarios. I know these would have to sit somewhere, but where is cleanest?
I know that there are many frameworks out there, but I'm going through the whole "want to understand best practice" behind it phase. Or is this totally the wrong way to do it? Should the controllers actually be structured differently?
To begin with, I actually really like, how you are dealing with implementation of MVC. None of that rails-like parody, where view is managed inside the controller.
Here is what I think is the root of your problem: you are still using a "dumb view" approach.
View is not supposed to be a synonym for "template". Instead it should be a full object, which has knowledge-of and ability-to deal with multiple templates. Also, in most of MVC-inspired design patterns, the view instances are able to request information from model layer.
In your code the issue can be traced back to view's factory ( the $load->view() method ), which only gets what controller sends it. Instead controller should only change the name of the view, and maybe send something that would change the state of view.
The best solution for you would be to create full-blown view implementation. Such that view itself could request data from model layer and , based on data it received, decide which template(s) to use and whether to require additional information from model layer.
I think you're somewhat on the right track with the latter approach. However, you should not hard code the calling of actions in your bootstrap. The bootstrap should interpret the URL and call the action methods dynamically through the use of a function like call_user_func_array.
Also, I would suggest that you leave the rendering of views up to the action code so the action logic is self sufficient and flexible. That would allow the action to analyse the input for correctness and render errors or views appropriately. Also, you've got the method 'deleteItem' on your controller, but that should really be the work of a model. Perhaps you should read up some more on MVC and try to work with an existing framework to understand the concepts better before you try to implement your own framework (I would suggest the Yii framework for that).
Here's an example of how I think your logic should be implemented in a good MVC framework.
class ListController extends BaseController
{
public function CreateAction($title){
if(ctype_alnum($title))
{
$list = new List();
$list->Title = $title;
if($list->insert())
{
$this->render_view('list/create_successful');
}
else
{
$this->render_view('list/create_failed');
}
}
else
{
$this->render_view('list/invalid_title');
}
}
public function DeleteAction($id){
$list = List::model()->getById($id);
if($list == null)
{
$this->render_view('list/errors/list_not_found');
}
elseif($list->delete())
{
$this->render_view('list/delete_successful');
}
else
{
$this->render_view('list/delete_failed');
}
}
}
here is a great tutorial on how to write your own MVC framework
Here is the flow:
User creates a text based post.
User edits a text based post (an edit page with the post info is displayed)
User submits the changes to the post (a request sent to the post controller)
Now, if I have MULTIPLE types of posts, I have to check in steps 2 and 3 that the user is indeed updating the RIGHT type of post because someone could very well alter the URL to edit a post of type A when it's really of type B. This leads to a lot of redundant code, such as ...
if(user is indeed the editor && the post type is correct) show the edit page
I think it would make a lot of sense to have an EDIT controller that does all the verification needed in the constructor (or maybe a base class?), and then calls the method. Have you encountered similar issues like this - and if not, does this make any design sense?
CodeIgniter is an MVC. That means that your controllers serve as an intermediate between your models (your data), and your view (front-end). "Edit" is an action that you do to objects, like data. Data objects should be organized within a controller, which calls the actual edit functions from the model.
I'm assuming you have a Post controller. At its core, it should have basic CRUD functions, like adding and editing posts. It should look something like this:
class Post extends CI_Controller
{
function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
}
function index()
{
// List all posts, perhaps?
}
function add()
{
// Add a post
}
function edit($post_id)
{
// Edit a post
}
function view($post_id)
{
// View a post
}
}
That will give you the following pages:
http://example.com/post
http://example.com/post/add
http://example.com/post/view/1
http://example.com/post/edit/1
Checking for user permissions is its own chapter. If you are using a library like Tank Auth, you can check permissions like so:
if ($this->tank_auth->is_logged_in()) {
// Do stuff
}
That should go at the beginning of each function - or in the __construct(), if you want to DRY it up completely.
Good luck.
I am in the process of learning the MVC pattern and building my own lightweight one in PHP
Below is a basic example of what I have right now.
I am a little confused on how I should handle AJAX requests/responses though.
In my example user controller below, If I went to www.domain.com/user/friends/page-14 in the browser, it would create a User object and call the friends method of that object
The friends method would then get the data needed for the content portion of my page.
My app would load a template file with a header/footer and insert the content from the object above into the middle of the page.
Now here is where I am confused, if a request is made using AJAX then it will call a page that will do the process over, including loading the template file. IF an AJAX call is made, I think it should somehow, just return the body/content portion for my page and not build the header/footer stuff.
So in my MVC where should I build/load this template file which will have the header/footer stuff? ANd where should I detect if an AJAX request is made so I can avoid loading the template?
I hope I am making sense, I really need help in figuring out how to do this in my MVC I am building. IUf you can help, please use some sample code
/**
* Extend this class with your Controllers
* Reference to the model wrapper / loader functions via $this->model
* Reference to the view functions via $this->view
*/
abstract class Core_Controller {
protected $view;
protected $model;
function __construct(DependencyContainer $dependencyContainer){
$this->view = new Core_View();
//$this->view = $dependencyContainer->get(view);
}
public function load($model){
//load model
//this part under construction and un-tested
$this->$model = new $model;
}
}
user controller
/**
* Example Controller
*/
class User_Controller extends Core_Controller {
// domain.com/user/id-53463463
function profile($userId)
{
//GET data from a Model
$profileData = $this->model->getProfile($userId);
$this->view->load('userProfile', $profileData);
}
// domain.com/user/friends/page-14
function friends()
{
//GET data from a Model
$friendsData = $this->model->getFriends();
$this->view->load('userFriends', $friendsData);
}
}
For me, I developed a separate object that handles all template display methods. This is good because you can then ensure that all the resources you need to display your UI is contained in one object. It looks like you've isolated this in Core_View.
Then, when an AJAX call is made, simply detect that it is an AJAX call. This can be done by either making the AJAX call through an AJAX object, which then references other objects, or you can take an easy approach and simply set an extra POST or GET field which indicates an AJAX call.
Once you've detected if it's an AJAX call, define a constant in your MVC such as AJAX_REQUEST. Then, in your template/UI object, you can specify that if it's an AJAX call, only output your response text. If it isn't, proceed with including your template files.
For me, I send it through an AJAX object. That way I don't have to worry about making a single output work for both cases. When it's ready to send a response, I just do something to the manner of print( json_encode( ...[Response]... ) ).
well, it would all start with normal request which would load the initial page. there are many options as to handle this but let's say that you start with /users/friends page which would list all your friends. then each of the friends should have link to specific friend's profile -- now this is the moment where ajax could kick in and you could ajaxify links to your friend profiles - this means that instead of normal you would instead use let's say jQuery and setup click handler in a such way that
$("a").click(function(){$.post($(this).attr("href"), null, function(data){$("#content").html(data);}});
this would use "href", and upon click would make post request to your backend. at backend, if you see that it's post, then you would just return the content for that particular friend. alternatively, if you have get request, you return all - header - content - footer.
if you use technique above, make sure to properly handle the data you receive. e.g. if there are further actions that should be done via ajax, make sure to "ajaxify" the data you get back. e.g. after updating html of the content, again apply the $("a").click routine.
this is just trivial example, to kick you off, but there are many more sophisticated ways of doing that. if you have time, I suggest reading some of agiletoolkit.org, it has nice mvc + ajax support.
You will need to use a different view. Maybe something like:
funciton friends() {
$this->view = new Ajax_Request_View();
$friendsData = $this->model->getFriends();
$this->view->load($friendsData);
}