PHP Retro Style MVC Framework?

[Mastodont]

post('username')->min_chars(4)->max_chars(6); 

IMHO these rules should not be hard coded in an application code, I prefer config files or similar stuff.

[Jake Arkinstall]

Thanks for the input - I'm sure we'll do something about that soon.

[CoderMaya]

The current suggestion that came up is to do it both ways. To enable you to do it from code, but to also have it in an XML file and then do (because post() with no arguments returns $_POST)

post()->load('filename');

[Renard Urbain]

Interesting but there is one problem here. It manage the errors but no error message so far so you know there is an error in the form but what is the error itself it yet has to be known =)

[CoderMaya]

post_errors() will now (in build 6) return all the errors with detail.

[World Wide Weird]

In sh_read() you use file_get_contents(), but in sh_write() you use fopen()/fwrite()/fclose() instead of file_put_contents(). Is this solely for backwards compatibility, or is there some other reason?

[CoderMaya]

sh_write needs to return a boolean or the number of bytes written so this is the fastest way

well in truth actually file_put_contents() does the same, but this is how the PHP developers wrote it in the manual - so it works for me. There's no big difference anyway, it does the same thing.

[parbal]

Great work CoderMaya, loving the concept.

Still looking over the code, but the first thing I noticed was some evil eval() usage in the route method of the router lib:

    public function route($request)
    {
 
	eval('$class = new '.$this->object.'();');
	$class->rb = new RecordBase();
	eval('$class->'.$this->method.'($request);');
    }

Changing it to use the Reflection API makes it look a lot tidier!

    public function route($request)
    {
	$obj = new ReflectionClass($this->object);
	$class = $obj->newInstance();
	$class->rb = new RecordBase();
	$obj->getMethod($this->method)->invoke($class, $request);
    }

[CoderMaya]

Changed - thank you!

[Jake Arkinstall]

When a bit more work has been done, the method to upload is:

upload('fieldname')->upload('uploads'); 

To upload the file to it's same name in the uploads folder.

upload('fieldname')->upload('uploads', 'upload123.txt'); 

To upload it to uploads/upload123.txt

(Here's the cool bit)

upload('fieldname')
    ->rotate(70)
    ->resize(100)
    ->upload('uploads/images', 'new_file', IMAGE_JPEG) 

to rotate the image 70 degrees clockwise, resize it to have a 100px width (if no height is specified it calculates the height by the change in width) and uploads it to uploads/images/new_file.jpg.

Cool, huh?

Oh, and theres more. You can validate the type:

$img = upload('image');
if($img !== false){
    $img->type(IMAGE_JPEG);
    if($img->is_valid()){
       $img->upload('uploads/images');
   }
} 

[spikeZ]

I am loving the enthusiasm you are both putting into this!

[ivanfx]

Hi guys!

Does Retro have a Form class/helper? If not, I have one done that will fit perfectly

[webaddictz]

Changed - thank you!

CoderMaya: like I told you yesterday, you shouldn't use eval(), but I think reflection is certainly overkill for your current goals. Consider:

    public function route($request)
    {
        $obj = new ReflectionClass($this->object);
        $class = $obj->newInstance();
        $class->rb = new RecordBase();
        $obj->getMethod($this->method)->invoke($class, $request);
    } 

and compare (benchmark, even) with:

    public function route($request)
    {
        $object = new {$this->object}( );
        $object->rb = new RecordBase( );
        $object->{$this->method}( );
    } 

The second is faster and evenly tidy (if you ask me).

[Jake Arkinstall]

Yeah, it looks much tidier.

Also it's obvious what it's doing if you have a standard knowledge of PHP syntax - whereas the ReflectionClass is... well it's less known.

In fact, I'd never seen it until Logic Earth used it as a solution to passing a single string of arguments 2 days ago.

And as this framework is all about keeping things simple, I'd go for the 'new {$this->object}()' approach.

[Salathe]

I'd love to see this pushed into the SVN repository, rather than being limited to just the builds that you guys release. Being able to svn co ... rather than go to site, find zip, download, extract... would be so much easier for me, plus the tracking of revisions over time (and who made them!).

Is there any particular reason(s) why you're using XML for the configuration files? Do they need to be in a transportable format?

[CoderMaya]

I just like to keep configurations in XML. It's tidy. I don't think we should populate global variables if we don't have to.

Build 6 is up, but now we're gonna work on some stuff and possibly release build 7 tonight.

[Jake Arkinstall]

Made some email functionality:

Email example:
simple:

email()
    ->to('email@nospam.com')
    ->from('arkinstall@nospam.com')
    ->subject('My Cool Emailing Method!')
    ->message('Hey, look at <u>me</u>! I can mail in a simple call without stress! get with the program!')
    ->send(); 

advanced:

email()
    ->to('email@nospam.com')
    ->to('anotheremail@nospam.com')
    ->cc('somecc@nospam.com')
    ->cc('someothercc@nospam.com')
    ->bcc('somebcc@nospam.com')
    ->bcc('someotherbcc@nospam.com')
    ->from('arkinstall@nospam.com')
    ->replyto('notme_mwahahaha@nospam.com')
    ->subject('My Cool Emailing Method!')
    ->message('<html><b>Hey</b>, look at <u>me</u>! I can <i>mail</i> a <em>HTML email</em> in a simple call without stress! get with the program!</html>')
    ->html()
    ->xmailer('PHP 5')
    ->replyto('me')
    ->replyto('sitepoint')
    ->send(); 

So any guys have any thing else which annoys you when writing a PHP applicaion please say so and we'll implement a better way!

[World Wide Weird]

I am loving the enthusiasm you are both putting into this!

So am I. It's infectious! I'm already planning to use this in a project. It's an app I've been putting off for awhile because dread of all the tedious coding that would have been involved was killing my motivation.

Which reminds me: any thoughts regarding a mascot and/or logo? I would like to put a "powered by" button on my app to make sure you guys get proper credit.

[Jake Arkinstall]

Hmm...

Well, spikez' Dave does need a home

We have a banner-ish, but no logo. Need to make it trendy but retro.

I'll work on it!

[Jake Arkinstall]

Haven't consulted Yam at all (he's offline at the moment) but what do you guys think of:


?

[World Wide Weird]

Can you change the vinyl LP to an 8-track?





Kidding! It looks great!

[Jake Arkinstall]

Hope Yam likes it too

[Czaries]

I really love how the project is coming along guys - great work so far.

But there is one concern I have about this project - a function naming standard must be set and adhered to. One of the most common complaints about PHP is that it's essentially just a big pool of over 3,000 functions with no set naming scheme to better group the functions. So we end up with things like 'sort', 'shuffle', 'array_merge' 'strpos', 'strlen', 'str_replace', etc. When they should have probably followed a common naming scheme like 'array_sort', 'array_shuffle', 'str_pos', etc. that would have made the function purposes and grouping much more clear.

I fear that this project may be heading down that same path already with global functions like 'find', 'record', 'single', etc. It seems to me that these should instead be either:
- Re-named to something like 'db_find', 'db_record', 'db_single', OR
- Put in an object that is retrieved with db(), like db()->find(), db()->record(), etc. like arkinstall's email() and upload() functions that actually retrieve objects for method chaining (which I love)

Great work so far guys - I hope that didn't get you down too much. Keep the enthusiasm and motivation going!

[Jake Arkinstall]

I hope that didn't get you down too much

All advice is welcome!

We have a standard naming scheme which is:

• All functions have underscores between words, i.e. Xhtml_strict(), img_tag().
• All classes are camel cased and the first letter is also capitalised, i.e. ImageUpload

The globalised functions are have basic names for ease of use more than anything. find() does what it says on the box - and it adds to the 'light' air of Retro.

Arkinstall's email() and upload() functions that actually retrieve objects for method chaining (which I love)

All inspired by Yam's post() function (which returns a validation object composing the value)

[Jake Arkinstall]

So guys, what annoys you when writing applications?

For me it was file uploading and emailing.

Need some ideas!