Web Frameworks - Workbook - Week 04

Main Page >> Web Frameworks >> Workbook >> Workshop - week 04

Create a Model and Database Table

Before we get started, let's consider something: where will these classes live, and how will we find them? The default project we created instantiates an autoloader. We can attach other autoloaders to it so that it knows where to find different classes. Typically, we want our various MVC classes grouped under the same tree -- in this case, application/ -- and most often using a common prefix.

Zend_Controller_Front has a notion of "modules", which are individual mini-applications. Modules mimic the directory structure that the zf tool sets up under application/, and all classes inside them are assumed to begin with a common prefix, the module name. application/ is itself a module -- the "default" module. As such, let's setup autoloading for resources within this directory, giving them a prefix of "Default". We can do this by creating another bootstrap resource.

Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader provides the functionality needed to map the various resources under a module to the appropriate directories, and provides a standard naming mechanism as well. In our bootstrap resource, we'll instantiate this, and be done. The method looks like this:

// application/Bootstrap.php

// Add this method to the Bootstrap class:

    protected function _initAutoload()
    {
        $autoloader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader(array(
            'namespace' => 'Default_',
            'basePath'  => dirname(__FILE__),
        ));
        return $autoloader;
    }

The final bootstrap class will look as follows:

class Bootstrap extends Zend_Application_Bootstrap_Bootstrap
{
    protected function _initAutoload()
    {
        $autoloader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader(array(
            'namespace' => 'Default',
            'basePath'  => dirname(__FILE__),
        ));
        return $autoloader;
    }

    protected function _initDoctype()
    {
        $this->bootstrap('view');
        $view = $this->getResource('view');
        $view->doctype('XHTML1_STRICT');
    }
}