Re: Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables

[weierophinney]

-- Gary Hockin <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Wednesday, 01 August 2012, 04:13 PM +0100):

> When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it erases
> any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable it
> simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I think
> this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:
>
> Class FooController extends AbstractActionController
> {
>     protected $viewModel;
>
>     public function __construct()
>     {
>         $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(
>             'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'
>         ));
>     }
>
>     public function indexAction()
>     {
>         return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(
>             'boo' => 'far',
>             'cat' => 'dog',
>         ));
>     }
> }
>
>
> As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to overwrite
> what I've set at construct time.
>
> My suggestions is either:
>
> Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables, but
> iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create deleteVariables or
> similar.
>
> or:
>
> Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets what
> you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.

I opt for the first idea. The liklihood that you actually want to
replace the contents of the view model are pretty slim, and
merging/adding/replacing values seems like a normal expectation.

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc

[Walter Tamboer]

Hi,
 
addVariables - should add variables to the already existing variables and overwrite duplicates
clearVariables - should clear all variables
removeVariable - should remove a variable
setVariable - should set the value of a variable.
setVariables - should overwrite all variables
 
:)
 

---

Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 16:13:49 +0100
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [zf-contributors] Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables

Hello!

When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it erases any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable it simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I think this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:

Class FooController extends AbstractActionController

{

    protected $viewModel;

    public function __construct()

    {

        $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(

            'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'

        ));

    }

    public function indexAction()

    {

        return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(

            'boo' => 'far',

            'cat' => 'dog',

        ));

    }

}

As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to overwrite what I've set at construct time.

My suggestions is either:

Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables, but iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create deleteVariables or similar.

or:

Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets what you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.

Thanks.

G

[weierophinney]

-- Walter Tamboer <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Wednesday, 01 August 2012, 06:36 PM +0200):
> addVariables - should add variables to the already existing variables and
> overwrite duplicates
> clearVariables - should clear all variables
> removeVariable - should remove a variable
> setVariable - should set the value of a variable.
> setVariables - should overwrite all variables

This means changing the ModelInterface, and adding a lot of verbosity. I
still stand by what I said previously -- in all liklihood, add vs merge
will hit the YAGNI principle -- you'll likely only ever expect
setVariable() and setVariables() to add/update the internal container.

> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 16:13:49 +0100
> From: [hidden email]
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [zf-contributors] Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables
>
> Hello!
>
> When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it erases
> any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable it
> simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I think
> this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:
>
> Class FooController extends AbstractActionController
> {
>     protected $viewModel;
>
>     public function __construct()
>     {
>         $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(
>             'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'
>         ));
>     }
>
>     public function indexAction()
>     {
>         return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(
>             'boo' => 'far',
>             'cat' => 'dog',
>         ));
>     }
> }
>
>
> As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to overwrite
> what I've set at construct time.
>
> My suggestions is either:
>
> Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables, but
> iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create deleteVariables or
> similar.
>
> or:
>
> Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets what
> you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.
>
> Thanks.
>
> G

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc

[Tomáš Fejfar]

So how would one implement the code mentioned in the question, Matthew? 

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Matthew Weier O'Phinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

-- Walter Tamboer <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Wednesday, 01 August 2012, 06:36 PM +0200):

> addVariables - should add variables to the already existing variables and
> overwrite duplicates
> clearVariables - should clear all variables
> removeVariable - should remove a variable
> setVariable - should set the value of a variable.
> setVariables - should overwrite all variables

This means changing the ModelInterface, and adding a lot of verbosity. I
still stand by what I said previously -- in all liklihood, add vs merge
will hit the YAGNI principle -- you'll likely only ever expect
setVariable() and setVariables() to add/update the internal container.


> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 16:13:49 +0100
> From: [hidden email]
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [zf-contributors] Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables
>
> Hello!
>
> When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it erases
> any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable it
> simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I think
> this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:
>
> Class FooController extends AbstractActionController
> {
>     protected $viewModel;
>
>     public function __construct()
>     {
>         $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(
>             'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'
>         ));
>     }
>
>     public function indexAction()
>     {
>         return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(
>             'boo' => 'far',
>             'cat' => 'dog',
>         ));
>     }
> }
>
>
> As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to overwrite
> what I've set at construct time.
>
> My suggestions is either:
>
> Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables, but
> iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create deleteVariables or
> similar.
>
> or:
>
> Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets what
> you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.
>
> Thanks.
>
> G

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc

[weierophinney]

-- Tomáš Fejfar <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Thursday, 02 August 2012, 12:40 AM +0200):
> So how would one implement the code mentioned in the question, Matthew?

I actually created a PR for this yesterday.

setVariables() now merges by default. However, an optional second
argument to the method, $overwrite, will tell the model to replace the
variables:

    $model->setVariables($variables, true);

Thus, if you wanted to clear the container, pass an empty array, and
true:

    $model->setVariables(array(), true);

To remove a single variable, simply pass a null value to setVariable().
Yes, the key will still be present, but a null value is typically
considered as "not present" in terms of view scripts.

> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Matthew Weier O'Phinney <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>     -- Walter Tamboer <[hidden email]> wrote
>     (on Wednesday, 01 August 2012, 06:36 PM +0200):
>     > addVariables - should add variables to the already existing variables and
>     > overwrite duplicates
>     > clearVariables - should clear all variables
>     > removeVariable - should remove a variable
>     > setVariable - should set the value of a variable.
>     > setVariables - should overwrite all variables
>
>     This means changing the ModelInterface, and adding a lot of verbosity. I
>     still stand by what I said previously -- in all liklihood, add vs merge
>     will hit the YAGNI principle -- you'll likely only ever expect
>     setVariable() and setVariables() to add/update the internal container.
>
>
>     >
>     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>     > Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 16:13:49 +0100
>     > From: [hidden email]
>     > To: [hidden email]
>     > Subject: [zf-contributors] Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables
>     >
>     > Hello!
>     >
>     > When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it
>     erases
>     > any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable
>     it
>     > simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I
>     think
>     > this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:
>     >
>     > Class FooController extends AbstractActionController
>     > {
>     >     protected $viewModel;
>     >
>     >     public function __construct()
>     >     {
>     >         $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(
>     >             'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'
>     >         ));
>     >     }
>     >
>     >     public function indexAction()
>     >     {
>     >         return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(
>     >             'boo' => 'far',
>     >             'cat' => 'dog',
>     >         ));
>     >     }
>     > }
>     >
>     >
>     > As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to
>     overwrite
>     > what I've set at construct time.
>     >
>     > My suggestions is either:
>     >
>     > Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables,
>     but
>     > iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create
>     deleteVariables or
>     > similar.
>     >
>     > or:
>     >
>     > Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets
>     what
>     > you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.
>     >
>     > Thanks.
>     >
>     > G
>
>     --
>     Matthew Weier O'Phinney
>     Project Lead            | [hidden email]
>     Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
>     PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc
>
>

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc

[Tomáš Fejfar]

Ah, I understood it poorly before. I thought that you were against this feature in whole! :) I'm bit bugged by the 

$model->setVariables(array(), true); 

part, because for me it feels natural to look for clearVariables() / unsetVariable(). But it's just convenience method which one can create in his own class ;)

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 3:09 PM, Matthew Weier O'Phinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

-- Tomáš Fejfar <[hidden email]> wrote
(on Thursday, 02 August 2012, 12:40 AM +0200):
> So how would one implement the code mentioned in the question, Matthew?

I actually created a PR for this yesterday.

setVariables() now merges by default. However, an optional second
argument to the method, $overwrite, will tell the model to replace the
variables:

    $model->setVariables($variables, true);

Thus, if you wanted to clear the container, pass an empty array, and
true:

    $model->setVariables(array(), true);

To remove a single variable, simply pass a null value to setVariable().
Yes, the key will still be present, but a null value is typically
considered as "not present" in terms of view scripts.

> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Matthew Weier O'Phinney <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>     -- Walter Tamboer <[hidden email]> wrote
>     (on Wednesday, 01 August 2012, 06:36 PM +0200):
>     > addVariables - should add variables to the already existing variables and
>     > overwrite duplicates
>     > clearVariables - should clear all variables
>     > removeVariable - should remove a variable
>     > setVariable - should set the value of a variable.
>     > setVariables - should overwrite all variables
>
>     This means changing the ModelInterface, and adding a lot of verbosity. I
>     still stand by what I said previously -- in all liklihood, add vs merge
>     will hit the YAGNI principle -- you'll likely only ever expect
>     setVariable() and setVariables() to add/update the internal container.
>
>
>     >
>     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>     > Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 16:13:49 +0100
>     > From: [hidden email]
>     > To: [hidden email]
>     > Subject: [zf-contributors] Zend\View\Model\ViewModel setVariables
>     >
>     > Hello!
>     >
>     > When you use setVariables in a Zend\View\Model\ViewModel instance, it
>     erases
>     > any variables that has come before it. However, when you use setVariable
>     it
>     > simply appends the variable to anything previously set. Personally, I
>     think
>     > this is a little inconsistent and limiting. Here is my use case:
>     >
>     > Class FooController extends AbstractActionController
>     > {
>     >     protected $viewModel;
>     >
>     >     public function __construct()
>     >     {
>     >         $this->viewModel = new ViewModel(array(
>     >             'somethingINeedInEveryAction' => 'Hello Mum'
>     >         ));
>     >     }
>     >
>     >     public function indexAction()
>     >     {
>     >         return $this->viewModel->setVariables(array(
>     >             'boo' => 'far',
>     >             'cat' => 'dog',
>     >         ));
>     >     }
>     > }
>     >
>     >
>     > As you can see, I can't add variables en-masse if I don't want to
>     overwrite
>     > what I've set at construct time.
>     >
>     > My suggestions is either:
>     >
>     > Change setVariables so it doesn't overwrite the previously set variables,
>     but
>     > iterates and calls setVariable on each element, then create
>     deleteVariables or
>     > similar.
>     >
>     > or:
>     >
>     > Change setVariable so that it empties previous set variable and only sets
>     what
>     > you pass, and create "addVariable" and "addVariables" methods.
>     >
>     > Thanks.
>     >
>     > G
>
>     --
>     Matthew Weier O'Phinney
>     Project Lead            | [hidden email]
>     Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
>     PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc
>
>

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | [hidden email]
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc