CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpoopmodel-view-controller
Sam Selikoff
Sam Selikoff

Reputation: 12694

When should the Controller get instantiated?

I am building an AJAX web app, using PHP for my back end. I am trying to design a routing system that will let me easily drop new pages in, and let me focus on the Javascript. The actual pages that PHP will be serving up are simple, just views that are essentially containers for Javascript charts (built with d3.js). Thus, my controller won't even have to interact with my model until I start making AJAX calls.

I am new to OOP, especially in back end. I've been doing a bit with Javascript, but I am brand new to incorporating OOP with MVC & solving the issue of routing. I know there are modules/plugins out there that have Routing classes written, but as the back end part of this project is very straight-forward - essentially, how best to serve up an 'About' page on a blog - I'd like to take this opportunity to learn it thoroughly myself.

I have one controller:

<?php
//controller.php
include 'views/view.php';

class Controller
{

    public function homeAction() {
        $view = new View();
        $view->setTemplate('views/home.php');
        $view->render();
    }

    public function categoryAction($category) {
        $view = new View();
        $view->setTemplate("views/Monitor/{$category}/{$category}.php");
        $view->setCategory($category);
        $view->render();
    }

    public function monitorAction($category, $monitor) {
        $view = new View();
        $view->setTemplate("views/Monitor/{$category}/{$monitor}.php");
        $view->setCategory($category);
        $view->setMonitor($monitor);
        $view->render();
    }

}

?>

Right now, I instantiate my controller at the beginning of index.php:

<?php
// Load libraries
require_once 'model.php';
require_once 'controller.php';

$controller = new Controller();

$uri = str_replace('?'.$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], '', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

// home action
if ($uri == '/') {
  $controller->homeAction();

// /{category}/{monitor}
} elseif (preg_match("#/(.+)/(.+)#", $uri, $matches) ) {
  $category = $matches[1];
  $monitor  = $matches[2];
  $controller->monitorAction($category, $monitor);

// /{category}
} elseif (preg_match("#/([^/.]+)#", $uri, $matches) ) {
  $category = $matches[1];
  $controller->categoryAction($category);

// 404  
} else {
    header('Status: 404 Not Found');
    echo '<html><body><h1>Page Not Found</h1></body></html>';
}



if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && (!empty($_GET)) && $_GET['action'] == 'get_data') {

    $function = $_GET['chart'] . "_data";
    $dataJSON = call_user_func($function);
    header('Content-type: application/json');
    echo $dataJSON;

}

?>

I have read a bit about PHP's autoloader, but I'd like to get it down manually first, because I want to make sure and understand the fundamentals.

Is this the appropriate place to instantiate my Controller object?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 671

Answers (1)

MahanGM
MahanGM

Reputation: 2382

First, your architecture is facing some major problems. You need a router to take care of your requested URIs by the users and next you need an initialization state for your system. The usual way to create Controllers is to extend a parent class, then in your parent class __construct method you can initialize your children controllers, however, your system isn't in a good shape.

This is a gold link that I never delete:

http://johnsquibb.com/tutorials/mvc-framework-in-1-hour-part-one

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions