processing requests in an MVC structure

besttb

I am new at building template based web sites. The template part I beleive I have grasped in my head but now I have to marry up the model and the view with the controller part of the MVC structure. I'm trying to decide whether to use modules in separate directories to process requests or use the template generator class to process the requests from the links in my menus and the rest of my application.

Some of my concerns is that I am creating classes like my template generator to become too specific, which will lead to mind-numbing confusing code. I have been at this point of confusion for a while so if anyone has any ideas on structuring the control portion of a web application I would be most grateful...

I am using PHP 5.0.4 with mysql v4.0.15

Thanks!
T

adcworks

the way i do this is i have a controller.php file at the root of my domain. i then use an apache rewrite rule so that any request that comes in on the domain, e.g www.domain.com/some/path or www.domain.com/path/to/file.html actually get rewritten to /controller.php. so this means we now have ALL requests on the domain coming into 1 controller.php file. You can then use the REQUEST_URI server variable to get at the /path/to/file.html part or the /some/path part. You can then use whatever logic you want with that path to return body view php includes from directories or database or whatever you like. The controller.php will include the main template, and then inject the body based on whatver logic you do with the REQUEST_URI.

besttb

How do you keep from having switch case statements that go on forever in your controller.php file??

kubis

besttb wrote:
... if anyone has any ideas on structuring the control portion of a web application I would be most grateful...

i suggest you buy and read this:
PHP Objects & Patterns

besttb

Kubis,

I read most of "Design Patterns" which is kind of old but I understand it is a must read. "Advanced PHP Programming" from SAMS publishing barely touches on the subject but it has some information - I was disappointed that this book didn't answer the question I have now... Do you think the book you mentioned has better info than these two books? Actually I need something that explains some ideas on handling requests coming into a PHP web site...

What do you think about "Code Complete"?

Thanks for your recommendation!

Tim

besttb

Just bought PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice. Answered my question right between pages 241 and 251 - exactly.

Thanks Kubis!
T