Processing a controller action

In this example, we create a controller and a view script. The controller passes the URL parameters to the view script.

Components used in this example

• Zend_Controller_Action
• Zend_Controller_Front
• Zend_Controller_Request_Http
• Zend_Controller_Response_Http

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MyActionController MyController MyHtml Entry point HTML | Try it | View source code

Using the action controller

class MyActionController
{
    const BASE_URL = 'http://domain/';

    public static $uri = array(
        'my/script/param1/one/param2/two',
        'my/script/param1/123',
        'my/script/param1/456',
    );

Processing the controller action

• We get the URL.
• We create the front controller.
• We create the request.
• We dispatch the action and we get the rendered data.
• If we catch an exception, we return the error message.

    public function process()
    {
        // We get the URL.
        list($uri) = $this->_getParameters();

        try {
            // We create the front controller.
            $front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
            $front->setControllerDirectory('.')
                ->returnResponse(true);

            // We create the request.
            $request = new Zend_Controller_Request_Http(self::BASE_URL . $uri);

            // We dispatch the action and we get the rendered data.
            $result = $front->dispatch($request, new Zend_Controller_Response_Http)->getBody();

            } catch (Exception $e) {
            // If we catch an exception, we return the error message.
            $result = $e->getMessage();
        }

        return array($uri, $result);
    }

Extraction of the parameters from the GET request

    private function _getParameters()
    {
        $uri = isset($_GET['uri'])? $_GET['uri'] : self::$uri[0];

        return array($uri);
    }

}

Action controller

class MyController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{

Definition of the name and the location of the view script

    const DIR = './data/action-controller';
    const BASE_NAME = 'myscript-%s';
    const FILE_NAME = '%s/%s.phtml';

Creation of the content of the view script

    const CONTENT =
'
File: <?php echo basename(__FILE__); ?> <br >
Generated: <?php echo date(DATE_COOKIE); ?> <br >
Controller: <?php echo $this->controller; ?> <br >
Action: <?php echo $this->action; ?> <br >
Param1: <?php echo $this->param1; ?> <br >
Param2: <?php echo $this->param2; ?> <br >
';

    public $baseName;
    public $fileName;

Initialization of the controller

• We set the path to the view script.
• We set the default time zone to UTC.

    public function init()
    {
        // We set the path to the view script.
        $this->view->addScriptPath(self::DIR);
        // We set the default time zone to UTC.
        date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
    }

Pre-dispatch

• We create a temporary unique name for the view script.
• We create the view script.

    public function preDispatch()
    {
        // We create a temporary unique name for the view script.
        $this->baseName = sprintf(self::BASE_NAME, rand(1000, 9999));
        $this->fileName = sprintf(self::FILE_NAME, self::DIR, $this->baseName);
        // We create the view script.
        file_put_contents($this->fileName, self::CONTENT);
    }

Rendering of the view script

• We pass the URL parameters to the view script.
• We render the content of the view script.

    public function scriptAction()
    {
        // We pass the URL parameters to the view script.
        $this->view->fileName = $this->fileName;
        $this->view->controller = __CLASS__;
        $this->view->action = __FUNCTION__;
        $this->view->param1 = $this->_getParam('param1', 'null');
        $this->view->param2 = $this->_getParam('param2', 'null');

        // We render the content of the view script.
        $this->render($this->baseName, null, true);
    }

Post-dispatch

• We remove the view script.

    public function postDispatch()
    {
        // We remove the view script.
        unlink($this->fileName);
    }

}

Displaying items

class MyHtml
{

Displaying the title of the page based on the file name.

    public static function printTitle()
    {
        $basename = basename(__FILE__, '.php');
        $title = ucwords(str_replace('-' , ' ', $basename));
        $zfVersion = Zend_Version::VERSION;
        $phpVersion = phpversion();
        echo "ZfEx $title (ZF/$zfVersion PHP/$phpVersion)";
    }

Displaying the selected option

    public static function printSelected($value, $target)
    {
        $value == $target and print 'selected="selected"';
    }

Colorization of data

• We export the data as valid PHP code.
• We add the PHP tag, we colorize the code, we remove the PHP tag.
• We display the data.

    public static function colorize($mixed)
    {
        // We export the data as valid PHP code.
        $mixed = is_object($mixed)? print_r($mixed, true) : var_export($mixed, true);
        // We add the PHP tag, we colorize the code, we remove the PHP tag.
        $mixed = '<?' . "php $mixed";
        $mixed = str_replace("\'", 'ZFEX_QUOTE', $mixed);
        $mixed = str_replace("'", 'ZFEX_QUOTE', $mixed);
        $mixed = str_replace('"', 'ZFEX_DQUOTE', $mixed);
        $mixed = highlight_string($mixed, true);
        $mixed = str_replace('ZFEX_QUOTE', '&#039;', $mixed);
        $mixed = str_replace('ZFEX_DQUOTE', '&quot;', $mixed);
        $mixed = str_replace('&lt;?php&nbsp;', '', $mixed);
        // We display the data.
        echo "<pre>$mixed</pre>";
    }

}

Entry point

• We process the controller action , and we get all the parameters, to display in the form.

// We process the controller action , and we get all the parameters, to display in the form.
$controller = new MyActionController();
list($uri, $result) = $controller->process();

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <title><?php MyHtml::printTitle();?></title>
    <style type="text/css">
      body, td {
          font-family: arial, sans-serif;
          font-size: 0.9em;
      }
    </style>
  </head>

  <body>

    <p>EXAMPLE <?php MyHtml::printTitle();?></p>
    <hr />

    <form name="form">

      <table>

        <tr>
          <td>URI</td>
          <td>
            <select name="uri">
              <?php foreach(MyActionController::$uri as $targetUri) :?>
                  <option value="<?php echo $targetUri;?>"
                          <?php MyHtml::printSelected($uri, $targetUri);?>>
                    <?php echo MyActionController::BASE_URL . $targetUri;?>
                  </option>
              <?php endforeach;?>
            </select>
          </td>
        </tr>

        <tr>
          <td></td>
          <td>
            <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
          </td>
        </tr>


      </table>

      <br />
      <span style="font-size:75%">Change ZF Version</span>
      <select style="font-size:75%" name="zf-version">
        <?php foreach(array_map('basename', glob("$zfDir/*", GLOB_ONLYDIR)) as $dir) :?>
              <option <?php MyHtml::printSelected($zfVersion, $dir);?>>
                <?php echo $dir;?>
              </option>
          <?php endforeach;?>
      </select>

    </form>

    <hr />
    RESULT
    <br /> <br />
    <?php echo $result;?>

  </body>
</html>