Amit Kumar Singh

ITBrainShapers
MVC
Model
Data layer
View
Presentation layer
Controller
Logic layer
Typical Flow
2

4 Data
base
Script
Client
1 3
MVC Flow
MVC can vary depending on the framework with
which you’re working, but generally it works as follows

1. The client sends a page request to the application,

either by typing a URL or by clicking a link of some
kind. By convention, a typical URL is usually
structured like this:
http://{Domain}.com/{Application}/{Controller}/
{Action}/{Parameter 1, etc.}

2. The dispatcher script parses the URL structure and

determines which controller to execute. It also passes
along any actions and parameters to the controller.
3. The function in the controller may need to handle
more data than just the parameters forwarded by the
dispatcher. It will send database requests to the
model script.

4. The model script determines how to interact with the

database using the requests submitted by the
controller. It may run queries with the database and
do all sorts of handy data-sorting instructions.

5. Once the model has pulled any data from or sent data
to the database, it returns its output to the controller.
Continue..
6. The controller processes the data and outputs to the
view file.
7. The view adds any design or display data to the
controller output and sends its output to the client’s
browser
 WEB SERVER

request for
/tasks/index 7 Response
1 Request
TasksController Layout
{tasks_controll {tasks.th
er.php}
Index ToDo Tasks
tml}
Method Method Index
2 Index View
5
Index
Done Undo Tasks 6 View
View Tasks
Method Method Views combined
Index
selected Index
Metho with
View {index.thtml
3 d Data View layout
Data todo.thtml
4
Called
Requested returned done.thtml}
Model Task
{task.php}
DATABASE
Table tasks
MVC FLOW
CakePHP
A framework for developing applications in PHP
Inspired by Ruby on Rails
Follows MVC design pattern
Convention over configuration
CakePHP follows the MVC software design pattern.
Programming using MVC separates your application
into three main parts:
The Model represents the application data
The View renders a presentation of model data
The Controller handles and routes requests made by
the client
Typical Flow Of CakePHP
CakePHP (or, for short, Cake) is a framework, not a
set of libraries, even though it contains dozens of
functions and methods that simplify web
development much like libraries do.

The benefit of using MVC to develop web sites is that

repeated functions or tasks can be separated, thus
allowing for quicker edits.
CRUD Operations and the Bake Script
 CRUD operations: create, read, update, and delete
 Stop writing each CRUD operation by hand,.
 Use prebuilt classes provided to do that.
 Cake includes the Bake script, a handy command-line
tool that generates editable CRUD code based on your
database schema and customized parameters.
Scaffolding
 it figures out how some standard interface views should
work with your database and outputs the HTML forms,
all without you having to write one bit of HTML.
Helpers
 Cake comes with standard HTML, Ajax, and JavaScript
helpers that make creating views much easier
Customizable Elements
 You can customize each of Cake’s features to fit your
application. For example, you can bring FCKeditor, the
popular WYSIWYG editor for web browsers, into Cake
as a plug-in.
 Using customized helpers, you can bring all the
functionality of FCKeditor into your Cake application
and actually trim out extra lines of PHP code to get it
working.
Other Features
Cake offers, its repository of other powerful resources
such as built-in validation
 access control lists (ACLs)
 data sanitization(Data Sanitization is the process of
making sensitive information in non-production
databases safe for wider visibility.)
 security and session handling components
view caching
CakePHP
app/
Framework
• config/
• controllers/
• models/
• plugins/
• tmp/
• vendors/
• views/
• webroot/
cake/
• config/
• docs/
• libs/
vendors/
The app folder will be where you work your magic:
it’s where your application’s files will be placed.
The cake folder is where we’ve worked our magic.
Make a personal commitment not to edit files in this
folder. We can’t help you if you’ve modified the core.
Finally, the vendors folder is where you’ll place third-
party PHP libraries you need to use with your
CakePHP applications.
Folder What it Contains

Holds the (few) configuration files CakePHP uses. Database

config connection details, bootstrapping, core configuration files and
more should be stored here.

controllers Contains your application’s controllers and their components.

locale Stores string files for internationalization.

Contains your application’s models, behaviors, and

models
datasources.

plugins Contains plugin packages.

 This is where CakePHP stores temporary data. The actual data it stores
depends on how you have CakePHP configured, but this folder is
usually used to store model descriptions, logs, and sometimes session
tmp information.
Make sure that this folder exists and that it is writable, otherwise the
performance of your application will be severely impacted. In debug
mode, CakePHP will warn you if it is not the case.
Any third-party classes or libraries should be placed here. Doing so
makes them easy to access using the App::import('vendor', 'name')
function. Keen observers will note that this seems redundant, as there
vendors
is also a vendors folder at the top level of our directory structure. We'll
get into the differences between the two when we discuss managing
multiple applications and more complex system setups.
Presentational files are placed here: elements, error pages, helpers,
views
layouts, and view files.
In a production setup, this folder should serve as the document root
webroot for your application. Folders here also serve as holding places for CSS
stylesheets, images, and JavaScript files.
Controller Extension
A Component is a class that aids in controller logic. If
you have some logic you want to share between
controllers (or applications), a component is usually a
good fit.

Controllers are also fitted with callbacks.

View Extension
A Helper is a class that aids in view logic. Much like a
component used among controllers, helpers allow
presentational logic to be accessed and shared
between views.
One of the core helpers, AjaxHelper, makes Ajax
requests within views much easier.
Model Extension
Behaviors work as ways to add common functionality
between models.
models are featured with callbacks as well:
beforeFind()
afterFind()
beforeValidate()
beforeSave()
afterSave()
beforeDelete()
afterDelete()
Callbacks available include:

beforeFilter(), executed before any controller action

logic
beforeRender(), executed after controller logic, but
before the view is rendered
afterFilter(), executed after all controller logic,
including the view render. There may be no difference
between afterRender() and afterFilter() unless you’ve
manually made a call to render() in your controller
action and have included some logic after that call.
Application Extension
Controllers, helpers and models each have a parent
class you can use to define application-wide changes.
AppController (located at /app/app_controller.php),
AppHelper (located at /app/app_helper.php) and
AppModel (located at /app/app_model.php)
are great places to put methods you want to share
between all controllers, helpers or models.
Convention Over Configuration
File and ClassName Convention
In general, filenames are underscored while
classnames are CamelCased. So if you have a class
MyStudentClass, then in Cake, the file should be
named my_student_class.php.
Model and Database Convention

Model classnames are singular and CamelCased.

Ex:-Person, BigPerson, and ReallyBigPerson
Table names corresponding to CakePHP models are
plural and underscored.
The underlying tables for the above mentioned
models would be people, big_people, and
really_big_people, respectively.
Controller Convention
Controller classnames are plural, CamelCased, and
end in Controller.
 PeopleController and LatestArticlesController are
both examples of conventional controller names.
Continue..
he first method you write for a controller might be
the index() method.
When a request specifies a controller but not an
action, the default CakePHP behavior is to execute
the index() method of that controller.
View convention
View template files are named after the controller
functions they display, in an underscored form. The
getReady() function of the PeopleController class will
look for a view template in
/app/views/people/get_ready.ctp.
Example
Here’s a final example that ties the conventions
Database table: "people"
Model class: "Person", found at
/app/models/person.php
Controller class: "PeopleController", found at
/app/controllers/people_controller.php
View template, found at /app/views/people/index.ctp
Flow
CakePHP knows that a request to
http://example.com/people/ maps to a call on the
index() function of the PeopleController, where the
Person model is automatically available (and
automatically tied to the ‘people’ table in the
database), and renders to a file.
 None of these relationships have been configured by
any means other than by creating classes and files
that you’d need to create anyway.
Naming conventions
http://book.cakephp.org/view/328/Cake-
Conventions
Table names: “notes”, “my_notes”
Model: “mynote.php”->“MyNote”
Controller: “my_notes_controller.php”->
“MyNotesController”
Views named after actions, organised in folders
according to the related controller:
views/my_notes/index.thtml
views/my_notes/add.thtml
 table name -students

 Model
 class Student save as student.php

 controller
 class StudentsController -students_controller.php

 view

 Create one folder in views folder named as controller name

 foldername =students

 view file extendsion must be .ctp or .thtml

Paths + parameters
Cake uses url to pass parameters
Apache mod_rewrite converts url into scriptname
and parameters
http://www.example.com
/controllername/action/param1/param2/…
Uses paths to figure out views
Views stored in “controllername” folder
OOP in support
Limited PHP in PHP <5
Much better support in PHP >=5
Simpler than Java OOP
class SomeClass {
function func() {
….
}
}
SomeClass s = new someClass();
s->func();
Hello world… again
Remember application is separated into model /
view / controller
Model:

<?php
/* /app/model/hello.php */
class Hello extends AppModel {
var $name = 'Hello';
var $useTable = false;
}
?>
Hello world… again
View:

<!--
/* /app/views/index.thtml */
-->
<hr size=1/>
<h1><?php echo $data ?></h1>
<hr size=1/>
Controller:

<?php
/* app/controller/hello_controller.php */
class HelloController extends AppController {
var $name = "Hello";
var $uses = 'Hello';
function index() {
$data = 'Hello world!';
$this->set('data', $data);
}
}
?>
Simple DB table app
• An online contact list
• We want to add, edit, view and delete
names and phone numbers
• Uses a single table
Model
Add table to DB:
CREATE TABLE cake_contacts (
id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT
PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(50),
number VARCHAR(50),
created DATETIME DEFAULT NULL,
modified DATETIME DEFAULT NULL
);
Model
Add a script called contact.php to models/
<?php
class Contact extends AppModel
{
var $name = ‘Contact';
}
?>
 View
views/contacts/index.thtml

<h1>Contact list</h1>
<p>
<?php echo $html->link('Add Contact',
'contacts/add') ?>
</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Id</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Number</th>
</tr>
 View
views/contacts/index.thtml cntd…
<?php foreach ($contacts as $contact): ?>
<tr>
<td><?php echo $contact['Contact']['id']; ?></td>
<td>
<?php
echo $html->link($contact['Contact'][name'],
"contacts/view/{$contact['Contact']['id']}")?>
[<?php echo $html->link('Edit',
"contacts/edit/{$contact['Contact']['id']}")?>,
<?php echo $html->link('Delete',
"contacts/delete/{$contact['Contact']['id']}",
null, 'Sure?')?>]
</td>
<td><?php echo $contact['Contact']['created']; ?>
</td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</table>
 View
views/contacts/view.thtml

<h1><?php echo $data['Contact']['name']?

></h1>
<p><small>
Created: <?php echo $data['Contact']
['created']?>
</small></p>
<p><?php echo $data['Contact']['number']?
></p>
 View
views/contacts/add.thtml
<h1>Add Contact</h1>
<form action="<?php echo $html->url("contacts/add"); ?
>" method="post">
<p>Name:
<?php echo $html->input('Contact/name',
array('size' => '40')) ?>
</p>
<p>Number:
<?php echo $html->input('Contact/number',
array('size' => '40')) ?>
</p>
<p><?php echo $html->submit('Save') ?>
</p>
</form>
 View
views/contacts/edit.thtml
<h1>Edit Contact</h1>
<form action="<?php echo $html->url('/contacts/edit')?
>" method="post">
<?php echo $html->hidden('Contact/id'); ?>
<p>Name:
<?php echo $html->input('Contact/name',
array('size' => '40')) ?>
</p>
<p>Number:
<?php echo $html->input('Contact/number',
array('size' => '40')) ?>
</p>
<p>
<?php echo $html->submit('Save') ?>
</p>
</form>
Controller
/app/controllers/notes_controller.php:

<?php
class ContactsController extends AppController
{
var $name = 'Contacts';

function index() {
$this->set('contacts', $this->Contact-
>findAll());
}

function view($id) {
$this->Contact->id = $id;
$this->set('data', $this->Contact->read());
}
 Controller
 /app/controllers/notes_controller.php:

function add() {
if (!empty($this->data['Contact'])) {
if($this->Contact->save($this->data['Contact'])) {
$this->flash('Your contact has been added.',
‘/contacts/');
}
}
}
function delete($id) {
if ($this->Contact->del($id)) {
$this->flash('The contact with id: '.$id.' has been
deleted.', ‘/contacts/');
}
}

Controller
/app/controllers/notes_controller.php:

function edit($id = null) {

if (empty($this->data['Contact'])) {
$this->Contact->id = $id;
$this->data = $this->Contact->read();
} else {
if($this->Contact->save($this->data['Contact'])) {
$this->flash('Your contact has been
updated.',‘/contacts/');
}
}
}
}
?>
Resulting application

…../cake/contacts/add …../cake/contacts/edit/1 …../cake/contacts/view/4

Other benefits
Bake script – command line script generator
Uses LAMP common web platform
(Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP)
Helpers for HTML, Forms, Pagination, AJAX,
Javascript, XML, RSS
Scaffolding (no need for views)
Create controller with var $scaffold;
Disadvantages
Mainly due to the limitations of PHP
Clumsy OOP
Access data through arrays not classes (which RoR
does) – more code in view
Create tables in separate SQL
Not well documented yet