Using the front controller

In this example, we instantiate a front controller and we dispatch an action. We also create a default controller. We customize the response to trace the calls. We have a plugin to set the default value of a parameter.

Components used in this example

• Zend_Controller_Action
• Zend_Controller_Front
• Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
• Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract
• Zend_Controller_Request_Http
• Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract

---

MyFrontController MyPlugin MyResponse DefaultController MyController MyHtml Entry point HTML | Try it | View source code

Using the front controller

class MyFrontController
{
    const BASE_URL = 'http://domain/subpath/';

    public static $uri = array(
        '',
        'my/',
        'my/get/',
        'my/get/param/123',
    );

Processing the front controller request

• We get the URI.
• We create the front controller.
• We create the request.
• We dispatch the action.
• We extract the call trace from the response.
• If we catch an exception, we return the error message.

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

        try {
            // We create the front controller.
            $front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
            $front->setControllerDirectory('.')
                ->returnResponse(true)
                ->setParam('noViewRenderer', true)
                ->setDefaultControllerName('default')
                ->setDefaultAction('default')
                ->setBaseUrl('/subpath')
                ->registerPlugin(new MyPlugin);

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

            // We dispatch the action.
            $response = $front->dispatch($request, new MyResponse);
            // We extract the call trace from the response.
            $result = $response->getTrace();


        } 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'] : '';

        return array($uri);
    }

}

Plugin to set the default value of a parameter

class MyPlugin extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
    public function preDispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall();
        $request->getParam('param') === null and $request->setParam('param', 'null');
    }

}

Customization of the response

class MyResponse extends Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract
{
    public $trace;

Returning the call trace

    public function getTrace()
    {
        return $this->trace;
    }

Tracing a call

    public function traceCall()
    {
        $backtrace = debug_backtrace();
        $this->trace[] = "class={$backtrace[1]['class']}, method={$backtrace[1]['function']}";
    }

Capturing a parameter

    public function traceParam($param)
    {
        $this->trace[] = "param=$param";
    }

}

Default controller: no action is really performed except tracing calls

class DefaultController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    public function init()
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall();
    }

    public function defaultAction()
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall();
    }

}

Action controller

class MyController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    public function init()
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall();
    }

    public function defaultAction()
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall();
    }

Extracting the parameter value

    public function getAction()
    {
        $this->getResponse()->traceCall($param);

        $param = $this->_getParam('param');
        $this->getResponse()->traceParam($param);
    }

}

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 front controller request, and we get all the parameters, to display in the form.

// We process the front controller request, and we get all the parameters, to display in the form.
$frontController = new MyFrontController();
list($uri, $result) = $frontController->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(MyFrontController::$uri as $targetUri) :?>
                  <option value="<?php echo $targetUri;?>"
                          <?php MyHtml::printSelected($uri, $targetUri);?>>
                    <?php echo MyFrontController::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
    <?php MyHtml::colorize($result);?>

  </body>
</html>