Yii: custom error handling forwarding - php

I'm looking for a way to forward the error handling in my Yii 1.1.14 app. The scenario comes as follows:
Assuming I have two modules: ClientModule at /client/, AdminModule at /admin/. If an url is resolved to belong to any controller in that module, the controller is loaded, and the errorHandler is reassigned to a module-level error handler like this:
public function beforeControllerAction($controller, $action)
{
Yii::app()->errorHandler->errorAction='admin/error';
return parent::beforeControllerAction($controller, $action);
}
In this way, an action exists at 'admin/admin/error' (which in turn is manually specified to be resolved to 'admin/error'), which will handle the error with a boilerplate like:
public function actionError() {
if($error=Yii::app()->errorHandler->error)
{
if(Yii::app()->request->isAjaxRequest)
echo $error['message'];
else
$this->render('application.views.error.index', $error);
}
}
Meanwhile, the analogous code (for both functions) exist in the other module (There's also a ClientModule and a ClientController with an actionError mapped automatically to 'client/client/error', remapped to 'client/error').
I have no trouble at all with these code chunks. My issue starts now:
If I input an url which cannot be resolved, even when the prefix is a module prefix (e.g. 'client/invalid/url' or 'client/client/invalid'), the controller will not be created (since it does not exist - or, as in the second example, the controller exists but not the action), and so beforeController will not be called, and so the custom error handler (in this example: the corresponding to ClientModule which sets $aClientController->actionError) will not be assigned. Result: the default ErrorController handling the unresolved url error.
So, questions:
Is there any way I could map an unresolved url (404) error to certain module, depending on the prefix? (it is safe, in my case, to assume prefixes, since I have not set any module as default).
Alternatively: is there a way to, being in the ErrorController->actionIndex(), forward the error handling to one of those controllers (i.e. moving to admin/admin/error and client/client/error while keeping the Yii::app()->errorHandler->error state)?
Edit - Footnote: Why should I use another controller if the error handling code is the same? Because I have additional data provided by those controllers which is used in the layout (e.g. menu, head menu).

Found the answer, again (my juniority has no limits - and the method name I needed had the exact name: forward!!).
Using the CController->forward('module/controller/action') inside the ErrorController->actionError method I could dispatch everywhere. I also changed another business logic condition and have not the custom error handler assignment in the modules constructors anymore, but I still use those controllers as forward targets of 'error/index' depending on the logged user type (i.e. an error occurred and the user was a client => forward to client/client/error, while being admin led to admin/admin/error, and being no logged user performed the error handling with error/index as usual).
public function actionIndex() {
if (Yii::app()->user->getState('client'))
{
$this->forward('client/client/error');
}
if (Yii::app()->user->getState('staff'))
{
$this->forward('admin/admin/error');
}
//usual boilerplate here
if($error=Yii::app()->errorHandler->error)
{
if(Yii::app()->request->isAjaxRequest)
echo $error['message'];
else
$this->render('index', $error);
}
}

Related

How to handle exception in Router when there's no requested class?

I am writing my own php mvc framework (just for training). The question is how to handle exception when the requested controller doesn't exist? Should I call 404 class or create and show new View from Router? I'll be glad if you have any advices for me!
Here are my autoload.php:
function __autoload($class)
{
$filename = __DIR__ . '/' . str_replace('\\', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $class) . '.php';
if (file_exists($filename))
{
require $filename;
}
else
{
throw new \Exception('The file doesn\'t exists!');
}
}
and Route.php:
namespace App;
class Route
{
public static function start ()
{
$controller_name = 'News';
$controller_action = 'Index';
if (isset($_GET['furl']))
{
// Getting rid of spaces
$url = str_replace(' ', '', $_GET['furl']);
if (substr($url, -1) == '/')
{
$url = substr($url, 0, count($url) - 2);
}
$arr = explode('/', $url);
foreach($arr as &$value)
{
$value = strtolower($value);
$value = ucfirst($value);
}
$controller_action = $arr[count($arr) - 1];
unset($arr[count($arr) - 1]);
$controller_name = implode('\\', $arr);
}
$controller_name = '\App\Controllers\\' . $controller_name;
try
{
$controller = new $controller_name();
}
catch (\Exception $e)
{
//HELP ME PLS!
}
$controller->action($controller_action);
}
}
No matter how many web frameworks, routers, autoloaders, etc are there already: keep doing what you think it's right for you and suitable to your momentarily understanding level, in order to LEARN. Actually, by confronting yourself with problems arised along the process of implementing yourself different parts of your application, you will not only gain the opportunity to learn and discover new things, but also to learn how and what to study in the already existing frameworks' design.
Study the PHP Standard Recommendations (the ones marked as "accepted"). Especially PSR-1,2,4,7. They are used by many frameworks and PHP projects. Read FAQs to find out more about the project itself.
Autoloader:
The PSR-4 provides a link with examples at the document end.
#mike suggested, that you should use the Composer autoloader. I agree with him and I strongly recommend it to you too. BUT I suggest you to do this only after you correctly implement and make use of your own autoloader (PSR-4 conform). Why? You definitely need to learn how the autoloading process works. And in some future situations you will still need your own autoloader implementation, even after Composer is installed and running.
Also be aware that you must not raise any exceptions from autoloader itself!
Router:
Btw, your class should be called "Router".
The router should not be responsible for validating the controller class/file and the action, nor for calling the action. These tasks are part of the "front controller" responsibilities. Your router should just return the components resulted after parsing, e.g. "exploding" the request URI ($_GET['furl']), in some form (as a Route object (with them as properties), as array, etc). These components are the controller name, the action name, the action parameters list (NB: the action parameters are not the query string parameters). The front controller uses them further to validate/access the controller class/file and its action and to call the action.
But please note that a router works actually in other way. In short: it matches (e.g. compares) the request method (GET, POST, etc) and the request URI against an existing (e.g. predefined by you) list of route definitions. A route definition contains the infos related to a specific controller, action, etc. If the HTTP method and the request URI "correspond" to one of the route definitions, then the router returns the matched definition's components to the front controller (in some form: as object, as array, etc).
For more details describing this principle see:
How to load classes based on pretty URLs in MVC-like page?
FastRoute
Aura.Router
Front controller:
It can be a class, but it can also be just vanilla code in the entry point of your app (index.php, bootstrap.php, etc). In the latter case, the front controller code should reside in a file outside of the document root of the app. For example in a bootstrap.php file, which is to be just included in index.php - whereas index.php resides inside the document root.
"controller/action not found" specific handling:
If a controller, or an action is not found/valid, then call a predefined action (for example displayError) of a predefined Error controller, which informs the user that, for a specific part of his request (actually of his provided request URI), no resource was found.
For example, consider that the user provided the request URI www.example.com/books/show/12. Conform to your app workflow the controller is Book, the action (e.g. the controller's method) is show and the action parameter is 12 (the value is passed as argument to the show method and defined as $bookId parameter in it). But, if the controller class is not defined, or no controller file exists, then the front controller should call the action displayError of Error controller, which should display a message like No resource found for your 'book' request. A similar info should be displayed when the show method is not yet defined in the Book controller.
Note that, if the Error controller or its action is not found/valid, then the PHP engine raises a corresponding error/exception. If you follow the next links I provided, you'll end up implementing three custom error/exception handling functions (referenced by set_error_handler, set_exception_handler and register_shutdown_function, respectively). They will catch and handle the described situation properly.
To read: Manage the errors of a framework
General error/exception handling in MVC:
Here are some good resources:
Again: Manage the errors of a framework
Error logging, in a smooth way
Error reporting basics
The (im)proper use of try..catch
Other MVC related resources:
Build a PHP MVC Application (Just for the start...)
Dependency Injection and Dependency Inversion in PHP
MVC for advanced PHP developers (A further list of resources)
Tom Butler's Programming Blog. MVC, PHP, Best practices
Clean, high quality code
P.S: Avoid the use of statics, globals, singletons. Why? Read here and here, for example.
Good luck.

Testing Laravel Service Providers

I'm (we're) creating a package that acts as a core component for our future CMS and of course that package needs some unit tests.
When the package registeres, the first thing it does is set the back/frontend context like this:
class FoundationServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
// ... stuff ...
public function register()
{
// Switch the context.
// Url's containing '/admin' will get the backend context
// all other urls will get the frontend context.
$this->app['build.context'] = request()->segment(1) === 'admin'
? Context::BACKEND
: Context::FRONTEND;
}
}
So when I visit the /admin url, the app('build.context') variable will be set to backend otherwise it will be set to `frontend.
To test this I've created the following test:
class ServiceProviderTest extends \TestCase
{
public function test_that_we_get_the_backend_context()
{
$this->visit('admin');
$this->assertEquals(Context::BACKEND, app('build.context'));
}
}
When I'm running the code in the browser (navigating to /admin) the context will get picked up and calling app('build.context') will return backend, but when running this test, I always get 'frontend'.
Is there something I did not notice or some incorrect code while using phpunit?
Thanks in advance
Well, this is a tricky situation. As I understand it, laravel initiates two instances of the framework when running tests - one that is running the tests and another that is being manipulated through instructions. You can see it in tests/TestCase.php file.
So in your case you are manipulating one instance, but checking the context of another (the one that did not visit /admin and is just running the tests). I don't know if there's a way to access the manipulated instance directly - there's nothing helpful in documentation on this issue.
One workaround would be to create a route just for testing purposes, something like /admin/test_context, which would output the current context, and the check it with
$this->visit('admin/test_context')->see(Context::BACKEND);
Not too elegant, but that should work. Otherwise, look around in laravel, maybe you will find some undocumented feature.

PHP OO - How should I handle soft errors in multiple classes?

I apologise if this has already been answered somewhere, but I haven't managed to find an answer so far - maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing!
I am trying to figure out how to handle errors in my OO PHP system, which is used to generate web pages. Hopefully this example will explain what I mean.
Imagine I have a Content class, a Form class and a FormObject class, which hold all the information on page content, web forms and form fields. All classes can run multiple MySQL queries via the DB class.
Users can create new content or forms in the back-end. When they do this, I use the classes to create and store the data in the database.
I also have a System class, which is used to generate the web pages. The System class checks what should be displayed on the front-end, builds the appropriate Content and Form objects, then generates the HTML and outputs it to the screen.
I have some checks for serious errors, which stop the code from going any further. However, the problem is that I want to feed back some "soft errors" to the front-end. For example, maybe the System class builds a Form object, which in-turn builds the fields using the FormObject class. The FormObject class queries the database for a field name, but a field name is not found. So the DB class returns an error. I want to be able to feed back a message to the front-end that says the field name has not been found.
What is the best way to get that "soft error" message back to the System class, so it can be outputted to the front-end?
I realise it is fairly simple in this particular example, but as more classes are added and, crucially, more levels are added, the problem becomes a bit bigger.
One way I thought of doing this was to have an Error class. The system would create an Error object and pass it on to each Content and Form object as they are created. The Form class would pass the same Error object to the FormItem class. Whenever an error is found, it is logged via a method in the Error class. The system can then access the original Error object and output all the errors. However, as the system grows, more classes are added, and more objects are created, it could get quite confusing. Is there a better way?
You might want to use either
something global that all classes can access (e.g. a global variable or a Singleton), or
something that is passed in to all instantiations of classses producing what you call 'soft errors'
to collect such errors. You then want to use whatever you collected and add it to the output in your System class somehow.
To be more specific...
This is an example for the solution using a global:
global $softErrorMessages = array();
class A
{
function sampleFunctionA()
{
// [...]
// some code setting $result to some valid value
// or to false if an error occured
if($result === false) // check for validity
{
global $softErrorMessages;
$softErrorMessages[] = "The sample function A caused a soft error";
return;
}
// [...]
// some code requiring a valid $result
}
}
If you use such a global, you can then easily access it from your System class and put its contents into the right places of your output.
However, if you perform unit tests, you might not want to use globals or global-like solutions (like singletons). So here is an example for an 'error collection' approach:
class ErrorCollector
{
private $errors = array();
function addError($error)
{
$this->errors[] = $error;
}
function getErrors()
{
return $this->errors;
}
}
class A
{
private $errorCollector;
function __construct(/* your additional parameters */, ErrorCollector $errorCollector)
{
// [...]
// additional instantiation stuff
$this->errorCollector = $errorCollector;
}
function sampleFunctionA()
{
// [...]
// some code setting $result to some valid value
// or to false if an error occured
if($result === false) // check for validity
{
$this->errorCollector->addError("The sample function A caused a soft error");
return;
}
// [...]
// some code requiring a valid $result
}
}
You would instantiate the ErrorCollector only once and then pass it to all other class instantiations. Then you let your objects perform their duties (and possibly add soft errors to the ErrorCollector). Once they're done, your System class would then get all the error messages and - again - place them at the right place of your output.
Exceptions is a convenient mechanism to handle errors. FormObject can throw an exception of some SoftErrorException class if DB returns an error. And then in System you are catching this exception and render it to front-end.
class System {
public function showFormAction() {
try {
$form = ... // create a form
$this->renderForm($form);
} catch (SoftErrorException $e) {
$this->handleSoftError($e);
}
}
public function handleSoftError(SoftErrorException $e)
{
// Do whatever you want with exceptions: render it
// $this->renderErrorPage($e->getMessage());
// or collect them and show after
// $this->errors[] = $e;
}
}

Preventing error pages caching when using Zend_Cache_Backend_Static

We're currently running an app that caches pages to static html files using Zend_Cache_Backend_Static. This works really well, except that our cache is getting filled with hundreds of empty files and folders when incorrect urls are requested. Is there any way to prevent a page being cached if an Exception is being thrown? I was surprised to discover that this wasn't standard behaviour.
I've done a little digging and the ZF code that actually deals with saving out the static html pages is as follows in Zend_Cache_Frontend_Capture:
public function _flush($data) {
$id = array_pop($this->_idStack);
if ($id === null) {
Zend_Cache::throwException('use of _flush() without a start()');
}
if ($this->_extension) {
$this->save(serialize(array($data, $this->_extension)), $id, $this->_tags);
} else {
$this->save($data, $id, $this->_tags);
}
return $data;
}
This function is the output_callback for ob_start. I've tried getting hold of the response object to test for status but it doesn't seem to work inside _flush.
$response = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getResponse();
if($response->getStatus() == '200') {
// do the save as normal
}
else {
// do nothing
return false;
}
My only other thought was to test the length of $data, only caching if strlen($data) > 0 seems to work but it doesn't feel robust enough.
Update:
Unfortunately by the time we hit the ErrorController the static page has already been written to the cache, so disabling the cache at that point won't work. However it is possible to remove the page based on $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], which is what is used as an id when the page is first written. This line can be added to the start of errorAction in the ErrorController:
$this->_helper->cache->removePage($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], true);
It works nicely, but I'd prefer not to write the page in the first place!
From further experimentation the problem is not down to standard Zend Framework exceptions that cause 404s (ie. Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler::EXCEPTION_NO_ROUTE, Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler::EXCEPTION_NO_CONTROLLER, Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler::EXCEPTION_NO_ACTION) but to my custom exceptions. This is now really obvious now that I think about it, as Zend_Cache_Backend_Static needs to be initialised in the init method of an action controller. Any situation where there is no route, controller or action it won't ever be initialised anyway.
I'm throwing exceptions in existing actions where a user may be querying for a non-existent article. Therefore caching has been enabled in init and the page has been written by the time we hit postDispatch in a Front Controller Plugin (still not sure why this is the case it just is) so I can't cancel at that point. One solution then is to cancel the cache at the point of throwing the exception. The standard method of managing static page caching is using the Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_Cache action helper. I've extended this to add a cancel method like so:
<?php
class Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_PageCache extends Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_Cache {
public function cancel() {
$cache = $this->getCache(Zend_Cache_Manager::PAGECACHE);
$cache->setOption('caching', false);
$cache->getBackend('disable_caching', true);
}
}
My action controller now looks like this:
<?php
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action {
private $_model;
public function init() {
$this->_model = new Model();
// using extended pageCache rather than $this->_helper->cache:
$this->_helper->pageCache(array('index'), array('indexaction'));
}
public function indexAction() {
$alias = $this->_request->getParam('article');
$article = $this->_model->getArticleByAlias($alias);
if(!$article) {
// new cancel method will disable caching
$this->_helper->pageCache->cancel();
throw new Zend_Controller_Action_Exception('Invalid article alias', 404);
}
$this->view->article = $article;
}
}
You should alter your .htaccess file RewriteRules to check for filesizes with option -s
This way if an error should occur when a page is being cached (thus producing a 0 byte file) it won't permanently be stored in the cache.
If you are using the standard ErrorController to handle 404, 500, and unhandled exceptions, and you can get a reference to your cache object from there, you could disable caching from the error handler.
In your error controller (or wherever you would like to cancel caching from), try:
$cache->setOption('caching', false);
When the save() metod of Zend_Cache_Core is called by Zend_Cache_Frontend_Capture::_flush(), it will see the caching option is set to false and it will not actually save the data to the cache and return true.

Zend: Is it possible to send view variables after a redirect?

How could I send additional view parameters after I have done a redirect (e.g. $this->_redirect->gotoSimple();)?
For example, let's say I have an Edit action which will redirect the user to an Error action handler and I would like to be able to send custom, detailed error messages to its view. To illustrate it clearer, the flow would be:
At the Edit view (say, http://localhost/product/edit), the user submits something nasty
At editAction(), a fail check triggers a redirect to my Error view/action handler (so that my URL would read like http://localhost/error/index)
The Error/index.phtml takes a "errorMessage" view variable to display the custom error message, and editAction() needs a means to pass in some value to that "errorMessage" view variable
A quick code snippet would probably look like:
public function editAction() {
//DO THINGS...
// Upon failure
if($fail) {
$this->_redirector->gotoUrl('/error/index');
//TODO: I need to be able to do something like
// $errorView->errorMessage = "Generic error";
}
}
Any solutions, or even other better ways of achieving this, is greatly appreciated.
Don't use gotoURL() for internal redirects. Use gotoSimple(). I takes up to 4 parameters:
gotoSimple($action,
$controller = null,
$module = null,
array $params = array())
In your case it's going to be:
$this->_redirector->gotoSimple('index',
'error',
null,
array('errorMessage'=>$errMsg));
See Redirector Zend_Controller_Action_Helper for details.
I have not seen anywhere that an action (editAction) accesses another action's view (errorView). for the special case of error handling, my idea is using Exceptions. you throw different exceptions for different bad situations, and in your error handler action, you can decide what to show to user based on the exception type:
// file: ProductContorller.php
public function editAction() {
// some code
if ($badThing) {
throw new Exception('describe the bad thing',$errorCode);
}
if ($badThing2) {
throw new Exception('describe the other bad thing',$errorCode2);
}
}
// file: ErrorController.php
public function errorAction() {
$error = $this->_getParam('error_handler');
$exception = $error->exception; // the original Exception object thrown by some code
$code = $exception->getCode();
switch ($code ) {
// decide different things for different errors
}
}
for more information about error handling, the Zend Framework quick start is a great tutorial.
for other situations, you can use some messaging mechanism to communicate between these 2 actions. using flashMessenger action helper is the first thing comes into my mind:
// file: ProductContorller.php
public function editAction() {
// some code
if ($badThing) {
$this->_helper->flashMessenger->addMessage('error1');
$this->_redirect('error');
}
if ($badThing2) {
$this->_helper->flashMessenger->addMessage('error2');
$this->_redirect('error');
}
}
// file: ErrorController.php
public function errorAction() {
$errors = $this->_helper->flashmessenger->getMessages();
if ( in_array('error1',$errors) ) {
// do something
} // elseif ( ...
}
although remember that flashMessenger uses sessions, so sessions and most likely cookies are going to be involved in this messaging process.
The standard way of doing this is with a session-based store of a message you wish to display. It's common enough that there is a view-based helper, FlashMessenger.
The FlashMessenger helper allows you
to pass messages that the user may
need to see on the next request. To
accomplish this, FlashMessenger uses
Zend_Session_Namespace to store
messages for future or next request
retrieval. It is generally a good idea
that if you plan on using Zend_Session
or Zend_Session_Namespace, that you
initialize with Zend_Session::start()
in your bootstrap file. (See the
Zend_Session documentation for more
details on its usage.)
go through this link.. it explains how can we set view variables before _redirect
http://www.rmauger.co.uk/2009/06/creating-simple-extendible-crud-using-zend-framework/
I'll add this to give some more info on how the FlashMessenger class works ( I had some issues figuring it out).
I read somewhere that a session should be started in Bootstrap.php using
Zend_Session::start();
..but my code worked without that, so I suspect sessions are already started.
We're in a controller-object and an action-method is being called. Then something happens, like an insert or an edit into the database, anything really.
We now set one or more messages. I use the following syntax.
$this->_helper->FlashMessenger("Message in a bottle.");
Which is exactly the same as using
$this->_helper->FlashMessenger->addMessage("Message in a bottle.");
This sets a message in the session, you can check that directly by calling
print_r($this->_helper->FlashMessenger->getMessages());
die();
Now there's a redirect to a new url (so a new request basically), inside the controller+action that is handling the request we'll add the messages to the view like so:
$this->view->flashMessages = $this->_helper->FlashMessenger->getMessages();
We now have a choice of where to output these messages. We can do this inside a view that "belongs to" a certain controller, so that could be
views/scripts/index/index.phtml
The drawback here is that you'd have to add the code outputting the messages to every viewscript that uses it. That's not very DRY.
In my eyes a superior solution is the following. Output these messages at in the file where you define the basic layout of your application. That's probably
layouts/scripts/index.phtml
I wrote the following code there.
<?php if( isset($this->flashMessages) && !empty($this->flashMessages) ){ ?>
<ul id="messages">
<?php foreach( $this->flashMessages as $message ){?>
<li>
<?php echo $message;?>
</li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
<?php } ?>

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