On 7/25/06, Nick Lo <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> <routes>
> <articles>
> <route>articles/:category</route>
> <defaults>articles/all </defaults>
> <required>articles/[a-z_]+</required>
> </articles>
> </routes>
>
I'm wet-behind-the-ears new to this list, so forgive me if I'm
speaking out of turn. I'm also wet-behind-the-ears new to the ZF, but
I'm fairly enchanted with it, and the work I've done with it in the
past couple of nights is relevant to this topic, so I thought I'd
chime in.
What I've done is establish a pattern for describing routes in a
Zend_Config 'compatible' file, and then extended the
Zend_Controller_Front class to automate the process of receiving
Zend_Config objects with route info and passing them through to the
front controller's router property.
Using XML as an example, routing configuration would look like this
(includes a rewritebase setting, both ways of establishing default
routing, and then an example of a user/:username routing, as taken
from the ZF docs):
<config>
<production>
<router>
<rewritebase>/projects/myapp</rewritebase>
<routes>
<default comment="Default routing.">
<url />
<controller>index</controller>
<action>index</action>
</default>
<compat comment="Default routing compatibility">
<url>:controller/:action</url>
<controller>index</controller>
<action>index</action>
</compat>
<user>
<url>user/:username</url>
<controller>user</controller>
<action>lookup</action>
<variables>
<username>
<default>someuser</default>
<validate>\w+</validate>
</username>
</variables>
</user>
</routes>
</router>
</production>
</config>
With that loaded up into a Zend_Config object, I then pass the nested
router Zend_Config object off to my extended class,
Phrappe_Controller_Front. It of course implements the same interface
to the Zend_Controller_Front class, so an HTTP request can simply be
dispatched like so:
$config = new Zend_Config(Zend_Config_Xml::load('path/to/config.xml',
'production'));
Phrappe_Controller_Front::run($zendConfigRouter, $zendConfigDirectory);
Note: the $zendConfigDirectory passed as the second parameter to
Phrappe_Controller_Front is also a Zend_Config object, which gives
directory location/structure info for the application install. I'm
still hashing this method out, but in my experience it has been
helpful to pull this information into config files as different shared
hosting allow different setup, so it's all in the name of flexibility
right? Anyway the directory node in the config file would look very
simple, like this:
<config>
<production>
<directory>
<controllers>path/to/controllers</controllers>
</directory>
</production>
</config>
Instead of pasting the entire code of my Phrappe_Controller_Front
class into this email, here's a link to download it. The zip file
includes my class file, and 3 different config files to test with, one
for each style of config file allowed (xml/ini/array).
http://www.johndwells.com/downloads/phrappe_controller_front.zipThe source code is well-documented, so it should be straightforward as
to what it's doing. I'm also trying to write up some thoughts about
it for my blog. Coming shortly.
I'm very curious about the implications of speed for this approach, as
Martel has mentioned. Is the Zend_Config object particularly slow? Is
one type of Zend_Config option faster than the next?
Seems to me that application configurations are to an extent a
necessary evil. Perhaps it can be up to the programmer which approach
to take: if speed is paramount, then include a php file with route
info hard-coded, but if there's some room for automation, then
something like this might be helpful.
Looking forward to feedback.
John W
Locked
