Injecting dependencies into your ZF2 controllers

When starting working with Zend Framework 2, it's common to copy the skeleton and put your controller definitions in module.config.php like this: 'controllers' => array( 'invokables' => array( 'Application\Controller\Index' => 'Application\Controller\IndexController', 'Application\Controller\Blog' => 'Application\Controller\BlogController', ), ), The controllers keyword is picked up by the ControllerManager which is an instance of the ServiceManager which means that it creates the controller instance for you when the dispatcher needs it.

Posted on 23 April 2014 in Zend Framework, Zend Framework 2

Sharing host VPN with Vagrant

When moving a project into Vagrant, I realised that I needed the vagrant guest to share my OS X's VPN. I'm using a separate IP address within a private network like this: config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "192.168.101.101" So, after some Googling, I added this provider configuration setting: config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb| vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "–natdnshostresolver1", "on"] end and now my VM is sending data over the VPN. Note that this will not work when using the… continue reading.

Posted on 16 April 2014 in Computing

Some (disjointed) notes on provisioning Vagrant with Ansible

I've been playing with Vagrant over the last few days, using Ansible to provision it. These are some notes to remind myself for next time and are very disjointed! Configuring Vagrant to provision using Ansible is easy enough: config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible| ansible.playbook = "provisioning/playbook.yml" end

Posted on 14 April 2014 in Computing

Writing to vagrant synced folders

I had a problem writing to the cache directory in my vagrant project due to file permissions. Fortunately Jeremy Kendall has already solved this problem in his Vagrant Synced Folders Permissions article.

Posted on 12 April 2014 in Computing

Immutable entities

I've been thinking recently about using immutable objects for some of my model-layer entities. That is, an object that cannot be changed once it is created. Immutable objects have a number of benefits including the fact that they are much easier to understand, simple to use and very easy to test. The main motivation for me is that an immutable object is very predictable as it's state doesn't change. This means that any calculated properties… continue reading.

Posted on 8 April 2014 in PHP

Use statements

I was having a discussion on IRC about use statements and whether they improved code readability or not. The choices Consider this hypothetical code: $cache = new \User\Service\Cache(); $mapper = new \User\Mapper\User($cache) $form = new \User\Form\Registration($mapper); $form->process($request->getPost()); vs use User\Service\Cache; use User\Mapper\User; use User\Form\Registration; // other code $cache = new Cache(); $db = new User($cache) $form = new Registration($mapper); $form->process($request->getPost()); The first snippet is completely unambiguous at the expense of verbosity. Those longer class names… continue reading.

Posted on 17 March 2014 in PHP

Broken

On the 26th January, I fell off a skateboard, dislocating & fracturing my left elbow. A trip to A&E that Sunday resulted in hospital admittance on Monday and surgery on Tuesday. This was the first time I've been admitted to hospital for an overnight stay and I found the whole process fascinating, but not something I ever want to repeat. I also can't say enough good things about the staff at Worcester Royal Hospital. Everyone… continue reading.

Posted on 10 March 2014 in Me

Creating a zip file with PHP's ZipArchive

I recently had a requirement to create a zip file from a number of files created within my application. As it has been years since I last had this problem, I had a look around and discovered that PHP 5.2 has the ZipArchive class that makes this easy.

Posted on 15 January 2014 in PHP

Implementing a ZF2 development mode

One feature that piqued my interested in the Apigility skeleton application was development mode. From the README: Once you have the basic installation, you need to put it in development mode: cd path/to/install php public/index.php development enable # put the skeleton in development mode

Posted on 2 January 2014 in Zend Framework, Zend Framework 2

Yearly Archives: 2014