I've started development on a CakePHP project since a few weeks now. Since the beginning I was struggling with the amount of code inside the controllers. The controllers have, in most cases more lines of code than the models. By knowing the expression "Skinny controller, fat model" I'm searching for some days now for a way to put more code in the models.
The question arises at this point is, "where to draw the line". What should the controller do and what should the model do. There are already some questions/answers on this only I'm searching for a more practical explanation. For example I've put a function below which is now inside the controller. I think a part of this code must and can be moved to the model. So my question is: what part can I move to the model and what can remain in the controller.
/**
* Save the newly added contacts and family members.
*/
public function complete_contacts()
{
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
if (isset($this->data['FamilyMembers'])) {
$selected_user = $this->Session->read('selected_user');
$family_members = $this->data['FamilyMembers'];
$this->ContactsConnection->create();
foreach ($family_members as $family_member) {
// connection from current user to new user
$family_member['ContactsConnection']['contact_family_member_id'] = $selected_user['id'];
$family_member['ContactsConnection']['nickname'] = $selected_user['first_name'];
$this->ContactsConnection->saveAll($family_member);
// inverted connection from new user to current user
$inverted_connection['ContactsConnection']['family_member_id'] = $selected_user['id'];
$inverted_connection['ContactsConnection']['contact_family_member_id'] = $this->FamilyMember->inserted_id;
$inverted_connection['ContactsConnection']['nickname'] = $family_member['FamilyMember']['nickname'];
$this->ContactsConnection->saveAll($inverted_connection);
}
}
}
}
Should I create a function in the FamilyMember model called: "save_new_family_member($family_member, $selected_user)"?
As far as the purposes of the M and the C
The model manages the behavior and data of the application domain,
responds to requests for information about its state (usually from the
view), and responds to instructions to change state (usually from the
controller).
The controller receives user input and initiates a response by making
calls on model objects. A controller accepts input from the user and
instructs the model and a view port to perform actions based on that
input.
I would suggest you can pass
$selected_user = $this->Session->read('selected_user');
To your Model and perform your for each inside of your Model. You may want to change rules as to how the data is stored or perform some transformations on it and the Controller should be blind to this. Basically use the Controller to get your information [from the View often] to the Model. Don't directly manipulate the Model from the Controller. In short YES create the function that you suggested :)
That being said sometimes I find myself in a position where my Controller has to do more than I'd like, in which case at least break the task down into helper methods that way your controller is more manageable and you can reuse code where needed.
You are doing it right.
You can of course create some methods in model and make it fat with:
function updateContactFamilyMemberId($id){}
function updateNickname($nickname){}
...
In my opinion it still will be correct, but unnecessary.
Related
Goal: understand whether this implemented order/logic of operation indeed belongs to the C part of MVC.
Situation: I have nearly finished a simple note-taking site with markdown files. No database is used except for authentication. The lack of database, however, makes it difficult to know if I am neglecting the M of MVC.
Because I did not want to have the .md extension as part of the pretty url, I am heavily relying on the PageController to settle the order of operation.
From the Controller, PageController inherits the constructed filesystem/Flysystem(fs), twig, and the "$app" that processes any of the three scenarios.
It first checks to see if a param.md exists and then whether param is a directory. If none of the above, then it's a new note. In each case, it uses a corresponding method set by the Application ($app) that processes and returns an array (title, breadcrumbs, content/directory listing, new template etc).
<?php
namespace App\Controller;
class PageController extends Controller {
public function Page($param){
$file=$param.'.md';
if ($this->fs->has($file)) {
$data=$this->app->setNote($file);
return $this->app->render('note.twig',$data)
}
elseif ($this->fs->has($param)) {
$data=$this->app->setFolder($param);
return $this->app->render('folder.twig',$data)
}
else {
$data=$this->app->setNew($param);
return $this->app->render('new.twig',$data)
}
}
}
Per "PHP the Right Way":
Controllers handle the request, process the data returned from models and load views to send in the response.
Although my code works and gets the job done, it does not appear to the be right way because the main App is doing the processing. I guess I could just move the Application.php in the Models folder, but would that make it adhere to "right way"? Should I use a Middleware before the PageController gets to work?
It may seem silly to ask about a code that just works, but my goal is to better understand/learn the current wisdom's ways when dealing with flat-files.
Regardless of whether you are 'database-less', the data is being stored / accessed in the .md files.
Access to them should be abstracted to a Model. You should create a File.find object + method, and/or a File.find_or_create. Then
$file = File.find_or_create($param);
$render_type = $file.type . '.twig';
return $this->app->render($render_type, $file.data);
Put all your if logic in the Model.
Using MVC I have something like this:
class Controller
{
//returns View
function indexAction()
{
$data = $this->getData($this->id);
$view = new ViewModel();
$view->setVariable('data' => $data);
//used to render HTML template + data above later on
return $view;
}
//gets data from DB
//currently also does business-proprietary computation on data
function getData($id)
{
//repository/dao pattern
$data = $this->repository->getData($id);
//Business Logic "derivation"
foreach ($data as $datum)
{
//that does not go into "Controller
//that does not go into "Repository"
//but where does it go? - that's my question
$derivedData[] = (new Business())->doLogic($datum);
}
return $derivedData;
}
}
Recap
I used Controller to get my data out of DB using Repository pattern, then placed received data into view. But business-related computations are left stranded.
Question
Where do I place my business logic computations that act on the data gotten from repository? The derived data which is to return to Controller later, to be placed into View?
My personal choices of architecture are usually to:
Have small controllers as thin as I can, doing only session and general right checking
Services that are handling all business logic, one (one classe yes) per potential feature I need
Services are querying repositories, and eventually manipulate the data in and out, but usually no Controller, nor view will do a ->save() anywhere.
This means that those services are usually designed to be independent from the database and easier to be tested because they only take care of one and only one task.
In your example, the whole function getData will be a service that I would call GetCarDataById. This assuming that you manipulate Cars, I don't like to leave data wandering alone.
EDIT: to make it clear, this kind of approach is not MVC to some definition, most people interpret MVC as putting all code either in controller, either in repositories (model). To others view, MVC doesn't mean that you have other classes, what I call services, and actually most of my code lives here.
The MVC pattern is clear for me.
From wikipedia:
The model directly manages the data, logic and rules of the
application. A view can be any output representation of information,
such as a chart or a diagram. Multiple views of the same information
are possible, such as a bar chart for management and a tabular view
for accountants. The third part, the controller, accepts input and
converts it to commands for the model or view.
Answering your question. The modifications goes in the model domain.
Using Symfony, I am displaying a table with some entries the user is able to select from. There is a little more complexity as this might include calling some further actions e. g. for filtering the table entries, sorting by different criteria, etc.
I have implemented the whole thing in an own bundle, let's say ChoiceTableBundle (with ChoiceTableController). Now I would like to be able to use this bundle from other bundles, sometimes with some more parametrization.
My desired workflow would then look like this:
User is currently working with Bundle OtherBundle and triggers chooseAction.
chooseAction forwards to ChoiceTableController (resp. its default entry action).
Within ChoiceTableBundle, the user is able to navigate, filter, sort, ... using the actions and routing supplied by this bundle.
When the user has made his choice, he triggers another action (like choiceFinishedAction) and the control flow returns to OtherBundle, handing over the results of the users choice.
Based on these results, OtherBundle can then continue working.
Additionally, OtherOtherBundle (and some more...) should also be able to use this workflow, possibly passing some configuration values to ChoiceTableBundle to make it behave a little different.
I have read about the "Controller as Service" pattern of Symfony 2 and IMHO it's the right approach here (if not, please tell me ;)). So I would make a service out of ChoiceTableController and use it from the other bundles. Anyway, with the workflow above in mind, I don't see a "good" way to achieve this:
How can I pass over configuration parameters to ChoiceTableBundle (resp. ChoiceTableController), if neccessary?
How can ChoiceTableBundle know from where it was called?
How can I return the results to this calling bundle?
Basic approaches could be to store the values in the session or to create an intermediate object being passed. Both do not seem particularly elegant to me. Can you please give me a shove in the right direction? Many thanks in advance!
The main question is if you really need to call your filtering / searching logic as a controller action. Do you really need to make a request?
I would say it could be also doable just by passing all the required data to a service you define.
This service you should create from the guts of your ChoiceTableBundleand let both you ChoiceTableBundle and your OtherBundle to use the extracted service.
service / library way
// register it in your service container
class FilteredDataProvider
{
/**
* #return customObjectInterface or scallar or whatever you like
*/
public function doFiltering($searchString, $order)
{
return $this->filterAndReturnData($searchString, $order)
}
}
...
class OtherBundleController extends Controller {
public function showStuffAction() {
$result = $this->container->get('filter_data_provider')
->doFiltering('text', 'ascending')
}
}
controller way
The whole thing can be accomplished with the same approach as lipp/imagine bundle uses.
Have a controller as service and call/send all the required information to that controller when you need some results, you can also send whole request.
class MyController extends Controller
{
public function indexAction()
{
// RedirectResponse object
$responeFromYourSearchFilterAction = $this->container
->get('my_search_filter_controller')
->filterSearchAction(
$this->request, // http request
'parameter1' // like search string
'parameterX' // like sorting direction
);
// do something with the response
// ..
}
}
A separate service class would be much more flexible. Also if you need other parameters or Request object you can always provide it.
Info how to declare controller as service is here:
http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/controller/service.html
How liip uses it:
https://github.com/liip/LiipImagineBundle#using-the-controller-as-a-service
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
{
$this->render_view('list/delete_failed');
}
}
}
here is a great tutorial on how to write your own MVC framework
I'm trying my best to learn MVC and cakePHP and I had a question about passing arrays to the view. Currently, I have some basic code below.
class AwarenesscampaignsController extends AppController {
public function view($id = null) {
$this->Awarenesscampaign->id = $id;
$this->set('data', $this->Awarenesscampaign->read());
}
This is what I "think" is currently happening.
AwarenesscampaignsController is set up. The view paramater requests id and matches it up with the Model, Awarenesscampaign. This matches up with the database and returns an array which is set to the variable "$data", and then the view is loaded.
My first question: is my understanding accurate?
What I would like to do is with this is to be able to pass another array, from a different model. For instance, I would like to query the table Posts (Controller: PostsController/ Model: Post).
For instance, my first attempt was to do the following inside the function:
$this->Post->find('all');
But this yields the error:
Indirect modification of overloaded property AwarenesscampaignsController::$Post has no effect [APP/Controller/AwarenesscampaignsController.php, line 20]
Additionally, I'm not sure how I would send both variables to the view.
To recap:
Was my understanding accurate?
How do I query a variable from another controller/model?
How do I sent this array to the appropriate view for that controller?
Thanks,
-M
You're on the right lines, and aren't doing it wrong per se. I would say your understanding is pretty good for a beginner.
By default Cake automatically loads a model that it thinks is directly related to the controller. So in AwarenesscampaignController, you can automatically access Awarenesscampaign (the model).
It doesn't know about any other model, though. One way you might solve this is by adding the following property to your controller:
// This has to contain ALL models you intend to use in the controller
public $uses = array('Awarenesscampaign', 'Post');
This goes at the top of the class, before you start declaring the functions. It tells Cake that you want to use other models except the 'default' one, but you have to add that one to the array too, or you'll lose access to it.
You can also use loadModel inside your action, if it's a one-off. It's then accessed the same way as you would access a model normally:
public function view($id = null) {
$this->loadModel('Post');
$posts = $this->Post->find('all');
...
}
To send this to your view, you can call set again, but you might want to change data to something more readable, and to prevent confusion:
public function view($id = null) {
...
$this->set('campaign', $this->Awarenesscampaign->read());
$this->set('posts', $this->Post->find('all'));
}
They'll be accessible as $campaign and $post respectively.
One tweak I would make, though, is to not use 'read' unless you intend to edit something. You can use findByColumnName to get the same data. Since you're using just an id, you can call findById:
$campaign = $this->Awarenesscampaign->findById($id);
There's quite a lot of magic going on there. It just means you can search for a particular value in a more short-hand format.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/retrieving-your-data.html
Finally, while you can access other models (as demonstrated), you can't, or generally shouldn't, try and access one controller from another. If you have code that you want to use in more than one controller, but can't go in the model, you can create Components.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/controllers/components.html#creating-a-component
The manual is fairly comprehensive. While sometimes hard to navigate, it will often have an answer to most of your questions.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/
1) Your understanding is good enough. What this is doing is basically mapping a row of database table with object. So after setting the Model id $this->Awarenesscampaign->id = $id, now Model is pointing to the row of database table that has id equals to what has been passed to view action.
2) you can query another table by calling the methods of that particular Model. If your model is somehow associated with the current Model that you are in, you can use chaining to call that Model's action. e.g. if your in Posts controller and Post Model is associated with Comment Model t get the data you can chain through.
$comments = $this->Post->Comment->find();
If however your Model of interest is not associated with current Model, there are couple of ways to perform operations of other Model. A good option is to use Class Registry. Say for example you want to use Customer Model which is not related to your current Model. In your controller you will do
$customer= ClassRegistry::init("Customer");
$customers= $customer->find();
3) to set multiple variables for the view you can set them via compact function or using associated row.
$posts = $this->Post->find();
$comments = $this->Post->Comment->find();
$this->set(compact('posts', 'comments'));
// or
$this->set('posts' => $posts, 'comments' => $comments);