Embedding CakePHP in existing page - php

Question

I've volunteered to create some db app, and I told those guys that it will be very easy, since I wanted to use CakePHP. Sadly after some time they told me they want it inside their already existing web, which is ancient highly customized PHPNuke.
So what I want is to generate just content of one <div> inside an already existing page with CakePHP. I looked up on the internet, but I didn't find what I was looking for. I'm rather a user of the framework, not developer, so I don't know much about the backend and how MVC frameworks are working inside (and this is my first try with CakePHP, since I'm Rails guy).
What I did so far is disabling mod_rewrite for Cake. Inside PHPNuke module I included Cake's index.php and rendering views with an empty layout. This somehow works, but the thing is how to form URLs. I got it working by now with
http://localhost/modules.php/posts?op=modload&name=xxxxx&file=index&do=xxxxx
but with this all links to CSS and images on PHPNuke site are broken.
Is there any way to use something like
http://localhost/modules.php?op=modload&name=xxxxx&file=index&do=xxxxx&CakePHP=/posts/bla/bla
or any other way that could do the job? I really don't want to change anything in existing PHPNuke app.
Thank you very much

Answer 1

Well, if you don't understand how CakePHP works you'll have trouble doing what you want, since it would mean putting hacks into the CakePHP core files to bypass the default routing. This basically means that you would be re-working the way CakePHP works, so you can forget about ever updating to a newer CakePHP version, and maintenance would be hell.
If you want to modify the system, but keep PHP-Nuke, I'd advise against jamming CakePHP in there, since that would open up too many problems to be able to predict beforehand.
I think your options are as follows:
Learn how PHP-Nuke works so you can modify it
Use regular php for the pages
Either of those are easier by orders of magnitude compared to what you wanted to do.

Answer 2

So to sum up solution I found, if someone will be looking for something similar. Problem solved by using two custom route classes ( http://manual.cakephp.neoboots.com/2.0/en/development/routing.html#custom-route-classes )
class CustomParserRoute extends CakeRoute {
function parse($url) {
if (parent::parse($url) != false) //if default parser has the match continue
{
// call to Router class to do the routing for new url string again,
// if &cakePHP= is in query string, use this, or use default
if ($_GET['cakePHP']) {
$params = Router::parse($_GET['cakePHP']);
} else {
$params = Router::parse("/my_controller");
}
return $params;
}
return false;
}
}
class CustomMatcherRoute extends CakeRoute {
// cusotm mathc function, that generates url string.
// If this route matches the url array, url string is generated
// with usual way and in the end added to url query used by PHPNuke
function match($url) {
$result_url = parent::match($url);
if($result_url!= false) {
$newurl = function_to_generate_custom_query()."&cakePHP=".$result_url;
return $newurl;
} else {
return $result_url;
}
}
}
And then simple configuration in routes php
App::import('Lib', 'CustomParserRoute');
App::import('Lib', 'CustomMatcherRoute');
// entry point to custom routing, if route starts with modules.php it matches
// the url and CustomParserRoute::parse class is called
// and route from query string is processed
Router::connect('/modules.php', array('controller' => 'my_controller'), array('routeClass' => 'CustomParserRoute'));
// actual routes used by cakephp app, usual routes that need to use
// CustomMatcherRoute classe, so when new url is generated, it is modified
// to be handled later by route defined above.
Router::connect('/my_controller/:action/*', array('controller' => 'my_controller'), array('routeClass' => 'CustomMatcherRoute'));