Software framework – stoimen's web log

Setting Up Zend Framework with Modules

Stoimen — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:59:21 +0000

Typical Zend App

Typically you’ve one module in your Zend App – the default one. In the basic installation of the framework, you put all the controllers, models and views directly in the application folder, as described below.

/application
	- /controllers
		- /IndexController.php
	- /models
		- /MyModel.php
	- /views
		- /scripts
			- /index/index.phtml
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Bigger Apps – More Code

When the application becomes bigger and bigger the controller, models and views/scripts directories contain more and more files. That’s a bit odd, because it becomes difficult to maintain, and than the modules come in hand.

Modules in a Zend App

When it comes to setting up modular Zend App there are tons of articles in the web, but let me show you a simple directory layout and … sample code that sets up the framework.

/application
	- /modules
		+ /admin
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
		+ /default
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
	- /models
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Source

Simply add this into the bootstrap:

$frontController->addModuleDirectory(APPLICATION_PATH . '/modules');

Setting Up Global Cache in Zend Framework

Stoimen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:17:48 +0000

In a large scale web application, especially based on Zend Framework, there are lot’s of components that support built in cache support. Such are Zend_Db, Zend_Translate, Zend_Date, etc. Also you may need cache support wherever in the app, so my advice is to setup a cache instance in the “beginning”, into the bootstrap.php or even better – into a front controller plugin, and to store it into the Zend_Registry. Thus you’ve to change only the lifetime for specific needs:

 true,
            'lifetime' => 60
        );

        $backendOptions  = array(
            'cache_dir' => realpath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/../cache')
        );

        $cache = Zend_Cache::factory('Core',
                                     'File',
                                     $frontendOptions,
                                     $backendOptions);

        Zend_Registry::set('cache', $cache);
    }
}

Than add it as a front controller plugin:

// cache plugin
$frontController->registerPlugin(new CacheInit());

Zend Framework: Cache Database Table Schemes

Stoimen — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:03:04 +0000

If you’re familiar with Zend Framework, you should know how to turn your database tables into models. Simply extend the Zend_Db_Table class. This is the very general example. There are lots of variations how to name the model classes and what member variables they can have.

The question is ...

The question is how the framework knows what columns there are in a given table. That's done by PHP on every call of the class, and the question is: isn't that too slow? Yes it is and there's a solution - to cache the table's schema:

Zend_Db_Table_Abstract::setDefaultMetadataCache($cache);

Is there any problem?

Why it isn't a default behavior when it's so good? Because you've first to setup the cache, which is not always permitted - at least you've to have writing permissions. And on the second place if you're rapidly developing the system and you change the database schema too frequently, you've to clear the cache every time. So it's a good solution for the production server, but you can skip it while developing.

Media RSS and ZF – Part 2

Stoimen — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:05:15 +0000

Here’s the promised chunk of code making the most simple bridge between Zend Framework and Media RSS.

Step 1

Just add a simple action in a controller:

class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
	public function indexAction()
	{
	    $this->getResponse()->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/xml');
	    $this->view->somevar = 'some value';
	
	    echo $this->view->render('index/index.xml');
	
	    $this->_helper->layout()->disableLayout();
	    $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
	}
}

Step 2

After you’ve setup the xml file as a view script – you can simply access it as a normal Zend Framework view:


  
   <?php echo $this->somevar ?>
   ...
   other media rss elements
   ...

Upload a File with Zend Framework

Stoimen — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:20:40 +0000

What’s the problem of Zend Framework’s file upload approach? As I couldn’t make it work it appears it really isn’t possible to make it work.

Can anyone tell me how to manage this abstraction over the PHP upload process work?

Cool tutorial about Zend_Paginator

Stoimen — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:20:01 +0000

Every part of Zend Framework is indeed very profesional and useful. But as it happens often some modules are less used than others. Don’t know why but my feeling is that Zend_Paginator, a wonderful tool for pagination is really misunderstood. And in fact it does one of the most common web development tasks. It builds the abstraction for a component that everybody uses in a web project – pagination.

It make sense if there where more tutorials like the following one describing its usage! Many thanks to Joey Rivera for a great tutorial about Zend_Paginator.

Even more this tutorials goes behind the pure usage of the paginator but it helps you understand the integration with one of the most used web apps today – Twitter and another Zend Framework component – Zend_Cache.

Using Zend Framework validators – Zend_Validate_Db_RecordExists

Stoimen — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:57:50 +0000

What are validators?

In very very breve these are methods which can validate some data, usually user input, against some specific rules. Imagine there’s a web form that is always checked for empty fields or some fields that may contain valid e-mail addresses. This is so common that became everyday routine to almost all of us. However smart developers make abstractions that help them reuse all this functionality. Even smarter developers make use of frameworks. And for those of you, using Zend Framework, there’s no need to write most of the common used validators, simply because they come with the framework itself.

Technically you’ve various validators in zend, such as Zend_Validate_Alnum, Zend_Validate_Email or Zend_Validate_Regex. All these are extremely useful when it comes to automatic, bullet proof validation, but I’m going to talk more about one specific validator.

Zend_Validate_Db_RecordExists

Although the implementation is nothing more than just a chunk of code and doesn’t pretend to be difficult, the idea of such validator is genius indeed. It really helps you do some amazing job.

Image you have to check some database record existence. Then comes in help this validator. In fact I’m pretty sure almost everyone has experience with such kind of task. Simply because the registration process almost always requires it. When you try to register new user you more often check for the username existence. Although you may solve the problem with other technique by catching the exception the database is throwing for duplicate entries, this should be assumed just as an example.

I’m pretty sure this validator can be really useful in many occasions!

Redirecting with Zend Framework – part 2

Stoimen — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:46:26 +0000

Recently I posted about the redirecting mechanism of Zend Framework. It’s a working chunk of code but the problem is that it seems quite difficult in according with other ZF sample codes.

Yes the same goal can be achieved with less effort. Like the _forward function which just executes other action/controller, you can call the _redirect method to rewrite the URI.

Just use that in any action of any controller:

$this->_redirect('http://www.example.com/');

That executes exactly the same as calling the header PHP method or echoing the refresher!