Rob Allen's DevNotes

One thing you may find yourself needing to do is access configuration information in a controller or service class.

The easiest way to do this is to use the ServiceManger's initialiser feature. This allows you to write one piece of injection code that can be applied to multiple objects. It's easier to show this in action!

Let's assume that we have this configuration file:

config/autoload/global.php:

return array(
    'application' => array(
        'setting_1' => 234,
    )
);

That is, we have a key called 'application' that contains application-specific configuration that we would like to access in our controllers (or service classes).

Firstly we define a interface, ConfigAwareInterface:

module/Application/src/Application/ConfigAwareInterface.php:

namespace Application;
 
interface ConfigAwareInterface
{
    public function setConfig($config);
}

We can now add this to a controller:

module/Application/src/Application/Controller/IndexController.php:

namespace Application\Controller;
 
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController;
use Zend\View\Model\ViewModel;
use Application\ConfigAwareInterface;
 
class IndexController extends AbstractActionController
    implements ConfigAwareInterface
{
    protected $config;
 
    public function setConfig($config)
    {
        $this->config = $config;
    }
 
    // action methods, etc.
}

In the controller, we add a use statement, implement our interface and the required setConfig() method.

Finally, we add an initializer to the Module class:

module/Application/Module.php:

class Module
{
    // Other methods, such as OnBoostrap(), getAutoloaderConfig(), etc.
 
    public function getControllerConfig()
    {
        return array(
             'initializers' => array(
                function ($instance, $sm) {
                    if ($instance instanceof ConfigAwareInterface) {
                        $locator = $sm->getServiceLocator();
                        $config  = $locator->get('Config');
                        $instance->setConfig($config['application']);
                    }
                }
            )
        );
    }
}

(We also have a use Application\ConfigAwareInterface; statement at the top!)

As getControllerConfig() is used by a specific ServiceManager only for controllers, we need to retrieve the main ServiceManager using getServiceLocator() in order to collect the merged configuration. As we only want the settings from within the 'application' key, we only pass that into the controller's setConfig() method.

The configuration settings are now available to us in any controller that implements ConfigAwareInterface.

We can also do this for service classes - we simply add another initalizer to the Module:

module/Application/Module.php:

    public function getServiceConfig()
    {
        return array(
             'initializers' => array(
                function ($instance, $sm) {
                    if ($instance instanceof ConfigAwareInterface) {
                        $config  = $sm->get('Config');
                        $instance->setConfig($config['application']);
                    }
                }
            )
        );
    }

It also follows that you can use initializers for any type of generic injection, such as mappers, db adapters, loggers, etc. Simply create an interface and write an initalizer.

I recently had a problem with a ZF2 based website where users were reporting seeing the error page displayed, but I couldn't reproduce in testing. To find this problem I decided to log every exception to a file so I could then go back and work out what was happening. In a standard ZF2 application, the easiest way to do this is to add a listener to the 'dispatch.error' event and log using Zend\Log.

To do this, I started with the Application's Module class and added an event listener:

    public function onBootstrap($e)
    {
        $eventManager = $e->getApplication()->getEventManager();
        $eventManager->attach('dispatch.error', function($event){
            $exception = $event->getResult()->exception;
            if ($exception) {
                $sm = $event->getApplication()->getServiceManager();
                $service = $sm->get('Application\Service\ErrorHandling');
                $service->logException($exception);
            }
        });
    }

This code attaches an anonymous function to the 'dispatch.error' event which retrieves the exception from the event's result and passes it to the logException() method in an ErrorHandling class. We retrieve ErrorHandling from the service manager which allows us to inject an instance of Zend\Log into it:

    public function getServiceConfig()
    {
        return array(
            'factories' => array(
                'Application\Service\ErrorHandling' =>  function($sm) {
                    $logger = $sm->get('Zend\Log');
                    $service = new ErrorHandlingService($logger);
                    return $service;
                },
                'Zend\Log' => function ($sm) {
                    $filename = 'log_' . date('F') . '.txt';
                    $log = new Logger();
                    $writer = new LogWriterStream('./data/logs/' . $filename);
                    $log->addWriter($writer);
 
                    return $log;
                },
            ),
        );
    }

There's obviously a few use statements at the top of the file for this to work:

use Application\Service\ErrorHandling as ErrorHandlingService;
use Zend\Log\Logger;
use Zend\Log\Writer\Stream as LogWriterStream;

The logging itself is done within the ErrorHandling class:

namespace Application\Service;
 
class ErrorHandling
{
    protected $logger;
 
    function __construct($logger)
    {
        $this->logger = $logger;
    }
 
    function logException(\Exception $e)
    {
        $trace = $e->getTraceAsString();
        $i = 1;
        do {
            $messages[] = $i++ . ": " . $e->getMessage();
        } while ($e = $e->getPrevious());
 
        $log = "Exception:\n" . implode("\n", $messages);
        $log .= "\nTrace:\n" . $trace;
 
        $this->logger->err($log);
    }
}

The logException method simply creates a string containing the exception's message along with any previous exception messages and the trace. We then call the Log's err method to store the log and can peruse at our leisure.

Update: I have updated the logException method to use a do..while() loop as it's neater and doesn't cause a an out-of-memory error that the previous code did. That is, it's a good idea to reuse the same variable when calling getPrevious()!

If you want to change the format of the value of a DateTime element, the easiest way to do this in your Form class is to do this:

        $this->add(array(
            'name' => 'next_appointment',
            'type' => 'Zend\Form\Element\DateTime',
            'options' => array(
                'label' => 'Next callback time',
            ),
            'attributes' => array(
                'min' => '1 Jan 2013, 00:00',
            ),
        ));
        $this->get('next_appointment')->setFormat('j M Y, H:i');

The two things to note:

1. You can't set the format within the array - it has to be via a setFormat() call.
2. If you change the format, you must set the min attribute in the same format, as otherwise it will try to set it with the hardcoded string of '1970-01-01T00:00Z' which will not work with your specified format.

I've been working on a Zend Framework 2 module within a larger project that doesn't have that many PHP class files. Specifically, it has a controller, a mapper, an entity, a service and a form.

As a result, the traditional Zend Framework 2 directory structure for the Account module looks like this (with class names in brackets):

module/
    Account/
        config/
        src/
            Account/
                Controller/
                    CaseController.php (Account\Controller\CaseController)
                Entity/
                    CaseEntity.php     (Account\Entity\CaseEntity)
                Form/
                    CaseForm.php       (Account\Form\CaseForm)
                Mapper/
                    CaseMapper.php     (Account\Mapper\CaseMapper)
                Service/
                    CaseService.php    (Account\Service\CaseService)
        view/
        Module.php

That's a lot of directories for not many files!

As a result, I decided to flatten it to this:

module/
    Account/
        config/
        src/
            Account/
                CaseController.php (Account\CaseController)
                CaseEntity.php     (Account\CaseEntity)
                CaseForm.php       (Account\CaseForm)
                CaseMapper.php     (Account\CaseMapper)
                CaseService.php    (Account\CaseService)
        view/
        Module.php

This is much more sane for a module with so few classes.

Minimising even more

Interestingly, while Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader is PSR-0 compliant, it also allows for a different top-level directory name for the classes within a single namespace. This would allow for the removal of the Account folder within src too, i.e a structure like this:

module/
    Account/
        config/
        src/
            CaseController.php (Account\CaseController)
            CaseEntity.php     (Account\CaseEntity)
            CaseForm.php       (Account\CaseForm)
            CaseMapper.php     (Account\CaseMapper)
            CaseService.php    (Account\CaseService)
        view/
        Module.php

This has no extraneous directories at all, but obviously you can only have one namespace within src.

To do this, you simply modify getAutoloaderConfig() within Module.php, so that it looks like this:

    public function getAutoloaderConfig()
    {
        return array(
            'Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader' => array(
                'namespaces' => array(
                    __NAMESPACE__ => __DIR__ . '/src',
                ),
            ),
        );
    }

Obviously, this is no longer PSR-0 compliant, but does mean that you don't have to worry about that extra directory in src. Also, obviously, you can only have one namespace within src too.

Of course, you can have subdirectories (sub-namespaces) if you wanted to too. e.g. you could organise the files into something like this:

module/
    Account/
        config/
        src/
            Controller/
                Case.php        (Account\Controller\Case)
            Form/
                Case.php        (Account\Form\Case)
            Model/
                CaseEntity.php  (Account\Model\CaseEntity)
                CaseMapper.php  (Account\Model\CaseMapper)
                CaseService.php (Account\Model\CaseService)
        view/
        Module.php

As this is no-longer PSR-0 compliant, it's arguable that it's not a "best practice", however it is very clear and understandable.

Remove src/

Finally, you could even remove the src folder and put the class files directly in the module's root directory:

module/
    Account/
        config/
        Controller/
            Case.php        (Account\Controller\Case)
        Form/
            Case.php        (Account\Form\Case)
        Model/
            CaseEntity.php  (Account\Model\CaseEntity)
            CaseMapper.php  (Account\Model\CaseMapper)
            CaseService.php (Account\Model\CaseService)
        Module.php
        view/

The autoloader configuration looks like this:

    public function getAutoloaderConfig()
    {
        return array(
            'Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader' => array(
                'namespaces' => array(
                    __NAMESPACE__ => __DIR__,
                ),
            ),
        );
    }

Ironically, this is PSR-0 compliant, even though it's less clear in this situation!

However, if your module consists solely of PHP classes and maybe a config file, then there's no need for a src directory at all.

Take away

So, in summary, the standard ZF2 module directory structure that you see everywhere is just a recommendation. There's no need to follow it slavishly if your needs are better served with a different structure.

This is a quick note on how to use Zend\Session.

Although the component name is Zend\Session, you actually interact with Zend\Session\Container to store and retrieve session data:

use Zend\Session\Container;
 
$session = new Container('SomeKeyName');

Zend\Session\Container's constructor takes a string argument which is the name for this container ('SomeKeyName' in this case). It's optional and if you don't set it, then it is set to 'Default'. The name allows you to use the same session keys in different containers.

To set data into the session:

$session->pageNumber = 2;

and to retrieve it again:

$pageNumber = $session->pageNumber;

Behind the scenes, Zend\Session has replaced _SESSION with an instance of Zend\Session\Storage\SessionStorage. Fortunately this object extends ArrayObject, so you can still access $_SESSION as if it was an array. Our particular piece of data is at $_SESSION['SomeKeyName']['pageNumber'] and is set it to 2.