I have a viewer helper function that loads the main content alongside the footer/header. The bug/unexpected behavior occurred when I loaded the array's key for the header that shares the same name for a variable in the main content view - the same array is loaded for both the header and main content.
I thought it's normal, since the same $data array was sent to the header and main content as-well(as mentioned before). So the variable will naturally be present in both views. But, well, it wasn't exactly like that. I unset the $data variable after sending the data to the header then re-created it when I wanted to send some data to the main view - but still the problem is not fixed.
I made a simple example for this bug/unexpected behavior:
Consider this view, named test:
<?php
echo $some_data;
And this controller:
class Test extends CI_Controller {
function index() {
$data['some_data'] = 'Some data.';
$this->load->view('test', $data);
/*
* Output:
* Some data.
*/
unset($data);
unset($data['some_data']);//Just to make sure it's not PHP's fault.
$this->load->view('test');
/*
* Output:
* Some data.
*
* Even though the $data variable is unsetted AND not passed!
*/
$different_data = array();
$this->load->view('test', $different_data);
/*
* Output:
* Some Data.
*
* Still outputs the same thing, even though
* I'm sending different array(and the $data array is unstted).
*
*/
}
}
Note: The whole code will output Some data. three times.
The only way to solve this issue is sending a different array and setting the array key(which is some_data) to something else which will override the old one.
So, is this a bug or something made by CodeIgniter's dudes?
we had the same problem like you and our Alien coworker found THE solution:
if file: codeigniter\system\core\Loader.php
find the code: (i think the line number is 806):
$this->_ci_cached_vars = array_merge($this->_ci_cached_vars, $_ci_vars);
and correct it to:
$this->_ci_cached_vars = $_ci_vars;
best regards
This is expected behavior.
Once variables are set they become available within the controller class and its view files. Sending an array in $this->load->view() is the same as sending an array directly to $this->load->vars() before calling the view file. This simplifies things for most people using multiple views in a controller. If you are using multiple view files in a single controller and want them to each have their own set of variables exclusively, you'll need to manually clear out the $this->load->_ci_cached_vars array between view calls.
A code comment in the Loader class describes another situation showing why this is the desired default behavior:
//You can either set variables using the dedicated $this->load_vars()
//function or via the second parameter of this function. We'll merge
//the two types and cache them so that views that are embedded within
//other views can have access to these variables.
This is a CodeIgniter issue. The variables you are sending in seems to be cached until you override them. I have encountered this myself and can verify it.
$this->load->view('test', array('some_data' => NULL));
Related
I'm using codeigniter multilanguage and it works fine. The problem is when I try to do multilanguage in the URL... how can I do it?
I mean the controller has to be a file, with a name, and its functions too... so I can't figure how can I do it.
The only alternative I thought is create the same controllers for each language I need... but this is a lot of repeated code just for change the name of the controller and functions... and the maintenance will be a big trouble.
Any help?
Pass the language indicator as a "GET" value to your controller functions:
eg.
base_url/controller/inventory/en
Then use it like this in your controller:
/**
* #desc This will get called when no method specified
* Will show home page (list of items)
*/
function inventory($lang="en",$from=0){
// load proper language file
$this->lang->load('language_filename', $lang);
// generate db where clause
$where = array(
"published"=>"1",
"language"=>$lang
);
// paging
$this->_setPagingLinks($this->newsModel->getTotalRecordsNumber($where),10,4,"inventory/".$lang,$lang);
// loading items from db
$this->data["news"] = $this->newsModel->getRecords($where,$from,10,"time");
// load the view according to language
$this->data["content"] = $this->load->view("$lang/news",$this->data,TRUE);
$this->load->view("$lang/container",$this->data);
}
I have been trying to pass an array that is generated in view to controller.
Say, $abc=array(); How do I sent this array to controller, then process it and sent this array to another view?
Is it even feasible? Not getting any answer after googling! Please help.
I see no point to generate array from inside the view.
It depends how your framework passes the data between the layers.
For example the controller do pass the data to the View object.
I.e.
public function someMethodInController() {
$this->view->varName['arr_key'] = 'something';
}
But talking about view, it might not have a certain controller already instantiated (usually it's against the MVC paradigm)
So I see two major ways:
Instantiate a controller (I would not prefer this)
$controller = MyController();
$controller->abc = $abc;
Or use sessions. This way to transmit data is universal inbetween your domain, and does not care if you are using a certain pattern, or how do you transmit between layers.
$_SESSION['abc'] = $abc;
Once assigned, you can use it in the same session from each of your files.
I'm new in cakephp and I'm just wondering, how to test models and controllers without using views?
I have to simulate saving data using models and controllers without using froms from views. I was thinking about to make an array with the needed values, but maybe there is a better way to do that?
you can mock your model functions using code like:
$model = $this->getMockForModel('MyModel', array('save'));
$model->expects($this->once())
->method('save')
->will($this->returnValue(true));
You can output variables at any time from controllers (or models) without getting to the views. Yes, it's not how you should do things with an MVC framework, but for testing, it's pretty easy to whack this below your database call in the model/controller:
<? echo '<pre>'; print_r($my_array); exit; ?>
The other thing you can do is at the top of your action function in the controller put:
$this->layout = '';
$this->render(false);
... which will bypass the layout and skip the view rendering, so you can output whatever you like within that function without using the view.
At the beginning of your action, you may use:
$this->autoRender = false;
This will allow you to access your action directly by going to it's path (e.g. CONTROLLER/ACTION). Before passing your data array to save() or saveAll(), I recommend double-checking it with Debugger::dump(), and follow that with die(). This will make the array containing the save data print on your screen so you can verify it looks proper and follows Cake's conventions. The die() will prevent it from actually saving the data.
If everything looks correct, remove the dump() and die() and test it out again.
The first response, from Ayo Akinyemi, should also work well if you are Unit Testing your application.
I'm working on a way for users to be able to generate PDF copies of invoices and other tabular data. To do this, I've wrapped dompdf into a library that I can use with CI and created a method that will generate a PDF based on the return value of CI's output->get_output(). The wrapper is similar to this one on Github.
The problem is, I can't figure out a way to get the view (and HTML/CSS needed for the PDF) into CI's output class other than load->view(), which is going to write to the browser.
My only other choice would be to use curl to request the page, but that seems so silly to do since I can get it right from the output buffer. I just don't want the HTML sent to the browser, since I set headers telling the browser to expect a PDF.
To be clear, this is what I want to accomplish (in the order that I want to accomplish it):
Do everything I'd normally do to prepare the view for display
Load the view into the CI output class, but not display it
Pass the return value of output->get_output() to my dompdf library
Set the appropriate headers
Execute my dompdf method that will send the PDF to the browser
I don't see any way of doing step 2 based on the output class documentation.
Is it possible to get a view into the output class without displaying it? If so, how? I'm using CI 2.0.3.
Edit
The very helpful Anthony Sterling pointed out that I can just get what I want from the loader class by setting the third argument telling it to return a string rather than render the view to TRUE. E.g.:
$lotsaHtml = $this->load->view('fooview', $somearray, TRUE);
And that would be better in my particular instance since I don't need to load partials. However, this is still a valid and (I think) interesting question, it would also be handy to know if I could get the same from the OB, perhaps if I did have a bunch of partials. Those could be concatenated, but yuck.
It seems like I should be able to get the output class to not render anything (else, why does get_output() exist?) so I can do something else with everything it knows about. I just can't find a way to make that happen.
Edit 2
Some pseudo (but not far from reality) code illustrating what I hope to do, by showing what I did and then explaining what I actually wanted to do.
Let's say I have a public method genpdf($id) in a controller named invoice using a model named inv:
public function genpdf($invoiceId) {
$this->load->library('dompdflib');
$this->pagedata['invoice_data'] = $this->inv->getInvoice($invoiceId);
$html = $this->load->view('pdfgen', $this->pagedata, TRUE);
$this->dompdflib->sendPdf($html);
}
That is almost identical to code that I have that works right now. There, I ask the loader to parse and give me the results of the pdfgen view as a string, which I pass to the function in my dompdf wrapper that sets headers and sends the PDF to the browser.
It just seemed like this would be easy to do by just getting the output buffer itself (after setting headers correctly / etc).
Or do I just have to call the output class append_output() in succession with every partial I load?
Multiple methods loading a plethora of models need to work together to generate these (they're going in as an afterthought), so I was hoping to just collect it all and retrieve it directly from the output class. It could be that I just have to talk gradually to output->append_output() to make that happen.
...so - do I understand correctly - you want to get the whole final output (not just the view) as a string AND not display it to the user? Why dont you just overload the controllers _output() function?
class Your_controller extends CI_Controller
{
function stuff()
{
// do whatever - prep $data etc
$this->load->view('your_view', $data);
}
function _output($output)
{
// send $output to your library - get results blah blah
$result_pdf_file = $this->your_pdf_library_generator($output);
// Show something else to the user
echo "hi - I'm not what you expected - but here is your PDF";
echo $result_pdf_file; // or something like that
}
}
This means you can send ANYTHING you like to the output class - but nothing is displayed except what you want.
There are ways to improve this idea (i.e. hooks, variables to turn output on/off etc) - but the simplest would be to have this controller specifically for your pdf_generation command.
I don't see any way of doing step 2 based on the output class documentation. Is it possible to get a view into the output class without displaying it? If so, how? I'm using CI 2.0.3.
The controller _output() documentation is actually in the CI controller documentation, which is why it eluded you.
I'm using this code in a views field template (in this case views-view-field--all-members--uid.tpl.php):
<?php
$users_friends = flag_friend_get_friends($user->uid);
$users_friends_ids = array();
foreach ($users_friends as $id => $value) {
$users_friends_ids[] = $id;
}
?>
It basically gets the user ids of friends and puts them in an array so I can check if the field matches any of the user ids.
So my problem is that I don't want to have this within this template (for a few reasons), but if I don't I can't access the array. How can I make this array globally accessible?
Without knowing your "few reasons", I can't say if this is the answer for sure. My own reasons would probably be that I don't want the same code executing a bunch of times, and I'd rather not have the same exact code in multiple places.
I would then create a function with a static variable to hold the friends array.
function mymodule_get_friends_ids() {
// pull in the current global user variable
global $user;
// call up the static variable
static $users_friends_ids;
// return if this static var has already been set
if (is_array($users_friends_ids)) {
return $users_friends_ids;
}
// if we hit here, then this function has not been
// run yet for this page load.
// init array
$users_friends_ids = array();
// if user is anon, no need to go on
if (user_is_anonymous()) {
return $users_friends_ids;
}
// get friends array
$users_friends = flag_friend_get_friends($user->uid);
// build ids array
foreach ($users_friends as $id => $value) {
$users_friends_ids[] = $id;
}
return $users_friends_ids;
}
Now in your templates, you can call mymodule_get_friends_ids() in as many places as you want, and the working code below the first return will only get executed the first time it is called.
Coder1's advice is very good - it keeps you from populating your global variable namespace with a lot of junk. It's probably the most "elegant." It might not be the easiest to use if you are rather new to PHP (which I'm guessing might be the case if it's hard to get your head around returning arrays, but that's ok).
However, if this is really a priority, you probably don't care about having one extra global variable.
I suppose I may be stating the obvious here - but you can, at pretty much any point in execution (provided the information you need has already been generated - e.g., the $user variable has been populated), do this:
$GLOBALS['users_friends_ids'] = /* your code goes here */
Then in your template, you access this by ...
$friendsArray = $GLOBALS['users_friends_ids'];
Or you can simply use the construct
global $user_friends_ids;
when you want to initialize the variable, or access it inside a function or class (which is the case for your template files - they are called inside functions, so you need to globalize or use the $GLOBALS array, which is "automagically" all of the variables active in the global namespace).
The most "logical" place to do this would be inside a module using one of the many hooks available, to execute this code only once. hook_init() might do it for you, if the user object is already loaded at this point (not sure, you'll have to test). But you might not want to figure out making Drupal modules (it's not that difficult).
If you are doing this inside a template (and though it's not good practice, many Drupal site owners with a beginning knowledge of PHP put everything in templates), you'll want to know which template code is being executed when. Node template code tends to be executed before page template code - which is logical, since otherwise the variables for node content in the page template wouldn't be populated.
If you have listings of nodes, they'll be calling this code multiple times, so you'll end up doing something similar to what Coder1 is describing. If you don't want to create your own small module, you could put the function declaration he's written in your theme's template.php file, since it's called only once. You don't want to put function declarations in the tpl.php files, since they are sometimes called more than once (and you aren't allowed to declare functions more than once).
If you have a hard time understanding the function and the return, you can always do something like this in your code (which is very, very inelegant - but it's better to have inelegant code that you do understand, than elegant code that's you don't).
if(!isset($GLOBALS['users_friends_ids'])) {
$GLOBALS['users_friends_ids'] = /* your code here */
}