Choosing suffix depending on request

Chriz · #1 (**permalink**) 07-21-2008, 04:47 AM

Hi,
I want to provide different views for my visitors, depending on their request.

Example request: "/example/help.json"
So the extension (".json") should be ignored for the dispatch, so that the request goes to ExampleController::helpAction() and "something" should set the suffix for my views and layouts to "json". The question is whats the best way, and is it possible? (using Router, preDispatch, modRewrite?)

I mean that's the whole sense of views, making it possible to switch them on-the-fly if another output type is requested (html, json, xml, pdf, txt, ..) but I couldn't figure out how to do that with Zend MVC. I don't want to use parameters here, because in my opinion a file extension is more intuitional and looks nicer.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion,
Chriz

Chriz · #2 (**permalink**) 07-27-2008, 05:07 AM

I solved it through my bootstrap file (the regexp didn't work for mod_rewrite, because I always got "php" as extension instead of the one set in the request uri):

.htaccess:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php

index.php:

PHP Code:


			
<?php
try {
    require "../init.php";
    $objConfig = Config::getInstance("paths");
    $objFrontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
    //$objFrontController->throwExceptions(true);
    $objFrontController->addModuleDirectory($objConfig->get("modules"));
    
    $objRequest = new Zend_Controller_Request_Http();
    if (preg_match("#^(.*)\.([a-z]{2,4})$#", $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], $arrMatch)) {
        $strRequestUri = $arrMatch[1];
        $strSuffix = $arrMatch[2];
        $objRequest->setRequestUri($strRequestUri);
    } else {
        $strSuffix = "html";
    }
    $objRequest->setParam("suffix", $strSuffix);
    $objFrontController->dispatch($objRequest);
} catch (Exception $objException) {
    echo get_class($objException), "<br />",
         $objException->getMessage(), "<br />",
         nl2br($objException->getTraceAsString());
}
?>

I'm using an AbstractController from which all controllers inherit:

PHP Code:


			
<?php
abstract class AbstractController extends Zend_Controller_Action {
    // ..
    
    public function preDispatch() {
        // ..
        $this->setupView();
    }

    // ..
    
    protected function setupView() {
        $this->view->strictVars(true);
        $this->view->setEncoding("utf-8");
        
        $objLayout = Zend_Layout::startMvc(array());
        $objLayout->setViewSuffix($this->_getParam("suffix"));
        //$objLayout->setView($this->view);
          //  "viewSuffix" => "phtml"));
        //$objLayout->setLayout("layout");

        $objViewRenderer = Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::getExistingHelper("ViewRenderer");
        $objViewRenderer->setViewSuffix($this->_getParam("suffix"));
    }
}
?>

I had some trouble with the ViewRenderer, because I tried to add a new instance instead of the one already available as shown above.

With some helpers for JSON and self-written XML helpers, I can render my view variables now in JSON, XML, HTML (standard) and TXT (which can be used for debugging, so you see all published variables).

/index
/index.html

Code:

<html>
<body bgcolor="red">


layout open
<h1>hero</h1>layout close

</body>
</html>

/index.json

Code:

{"Response":{"Title":"hero"}}

using Zend_View_Helper_Json

index.xml

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<response><title>hero</title></response>

using custom view helper and PHP's DOM-Library:

PHP Code:


			
<?php
class Zend_View_Helper_XmlResponse extends CustomViewHelper {
    protected $arrPublishedVars;
    
    public function xmlResponse(array $arrPublishedVars) {
        $this->arrPublishedVars = $arrPublishedVars;
        return $this;
    }
    
    public function getRender() {
        $this->disableLayout();
        $objDocument = new DomDocument("1.0", "utf-8");
        $objRoot = $objDocument->createElement("response");
        $objDocument->appendChild($objRoot);
        foreach ($this->arrPublishedVars as $strVar => $mixValue) {
            $strVar = strtolower($strVar);
            $objNode = $objDocument->createElement($strVar, $mixValue);
            $objRoot->appendChild($objNode);
        }
        $objResponse = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getResponse();
        $objResponse->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/xml');
        $objResponse->sendResponse();
        return $objDocument->saveXml();
    }
}

/index.txt

Code:

This is for debug purposes or just for fun:
value `Title` is `hero`

This "Title" = "hero" is provided by just one IndexController::indexAction() method:

PHP Code:


			
<?php
class IndexController extends AbstractController {
    public function indexAction() {
        $strTitle = "hero";
        $this->publishVars(get_defined_vars());
    }
}

Tekerson · #3 (**permalink**) 07-28-2008, 12:27 AM

I think what you're trying to achieve can be handled by the ContextSwitch action helper: Zend Framework: Documentation

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