Pragmatism in the real world
A Zend Framework 2 application is made up of a number of modules which each contain the controllers, models, views and other support code required to implement a specific part of the application. Within a standard ZF2 application, modules live in one of two places: /module – for application specific modules /vendor – for 3rd party modules It follows that you are not expected to ever modify 3rd party modules that are stored in /vendor.… continue reading.
Zend Framework 2 provides its own dependency injection container, Zend\Di which is a key underpinning of the entire framework and especially the MVC system. I have covered before, my thoughts on the reasons for using dependency injection, so this article looks at the fundamentals of using Zend\Di. Constructor injection Consider this code: namespace My; class DatabaseAdapter { } class UserTable { protected $db; public function __construct (DatabaseAdapter $db) { $this->db = $db; } } This… continue reading.
As I'm using Sublime Text 2 more and more, I thought it would be useful to display the current method name in the status bar. I poked around on the forums and created a plugin from ideas I found in a couple of different threads. This plugin is imaginatively titled Sublime Function Name Display! As I've hooked into the on_selection_modified event handler, I was keen to avoid slowing down the editor too much when you… continue reading.
Let's say that you install the ZF-Common's User module. By default, it sets up its routes under the /user path segment like this: vendor/ZfcUser/config/module.config.php return array( // lots of config stuff here /** * Routes */ 'ZendMvcRouterRouteStack' => array( 'parameters' => array( 'routes' => array( 'zfcuser' => array( 'type' => 'Literal', 'priority' => 1000, 'options' => array( 'route' => '/user', 'defaults' => array( 'controller' => 'zfcuser', 'action' => 'index', ), ), 'may_terminate' => true, 'child_routes'… continue reading.
Shahar has posted a new article about how to generate ZF2 autoloader classmaps with phing. As the ZF2 classmap autoloader is quicker than the standard autoloader, this can be a benefit in production, so being able to automate the creation is beneficial. Fortunately, using ZF2′s autoloader stack and Phing, we can enjoy both worlds: while in development, standard PSR-0 autoloading is used and the developer can work smoothly without worrying about updating class maps. As… continue reading.
Zend Framework 2 comes with a dependency injection container (DIC), as does Symfony 2 and Aura, along with many other PHP frameworks that target PHP 5.3 or higher nowadays. This article attempts to explore the problem that a DIC tries to solve. Consider this simple (contrived!) example of an Album object that has an Artist object: class Album { protected $artist; public function getArtistName() { return $artist->getName(); } } The question is how to we… continue reading.
I know that there are a lot of posts now about namespaces in PHP 5.3. This is mine which is how I learnt how they work. What are namespaces? From the PHP manual: namespaces are a way of encapsulating items Hardly the most useful of definitions, but it's a starting point! A namespace is a way of grouping code that exists across multiple files without having a naming collision. That is, you can have the… continue reading.
Autoloading is the process in PHP whereby the system attempts to load a class when it is first encountered (via new or via class_exists) if it hasn't already been loaded via a require or include. Autoload works by looking for a method called __autoload or walking through any method registered with spl_autoload_register. Zend Framework 2 provides the Zend\Loader\Autoloader component for autoloading of Zend Framework and your own classes. What does it provide? The ZF2 autoloader… continue reading.
Let's say that you want to set up a one-to-many relationship between two tables: Artists and Albums because you've refactored my ZF1 tutorial. Let's assume that an artist has many albums. These are the basic table definitions: artists table: id, artist albums table: id, artist_id, title When you list the albums, you obviously want to see the artist name rather than the id, so clearly you use a join! Assuming you're using Zend_Db_Table, the easiest… continue reading.
Stuart Herbert has written two new Sublime Text packages for PHP: Additional PHP Snippets PHPUnit The best way to install these is to install Package Control first and then use shift+cmd+P -> install package. Even better, Stuart has rolled my getter/setter creation snippet into Additional PHP Snippets, so you can now have it without any hassle! Update: Also, Ben Selby has created a package for DocBlox!
