PHP OOP question

[umair862]

Hi,
I am new to OOP and i am really confused about something in ZF program.
File -----Indexcontroller.php------

public $myNamespace;
    public function websession()
    {
        $this->myNamespace = new Zend_Session_Namespace('Default');
        if(isset($this->myNamespace->countPages))
        {
            $this->myNamespace->countPages++;
            
        }
        else
        {
            $this->myNamespace->countPages=1;
            
        }
        
        return $this->myNamespace->countPages;
    }


    public function indexAction()
    {
/*$this->view->title = "Our Albums";
$this->view->headTitle($this->view->title, 'PREPEND');
$albums = new Model_DbTable_Albums();
$this->view->albums = $albums->fetchAll();*/
$this->view->message=$this->websession();
    }

File-----index.phtml------

<h1>Message: <?php echo $this->message; ?></h1>

Above code display the refresh button pressed for a session. It is working fine. However, I have a few question regarding OOP.

File -----Indexcontroller.php------

1. I have tried
$this->view->message=$this->myNamespace->countPages;
but it looks like message variable is not storing it. It is not dipslaying it on webpage.

2. Why are we using $this->view->message instead of just $this->message? What is view?

File-----index.phtml------

3. <h1>Message: <?php echo $this->message; ?>
Why are we not using $this->view->message ?
We have stored the output of session in $this->view->message on indexController page but we are using only $this->message on index.phtml.

4.what is $this->escape($this->message); escape function in zend framework?

Please don't mind if i have asked stupid questions. I am new to OOP and ZF.
Thank You,
Umair

[Tekerson]

2. $this->view in the controller is a Zend_View object, so setting
[php]$this->view->message = "foo";[/php] is setting the value "foo" to the variable "message" on the view object. Whereas, $this->message would be the message variable of the controller object.

3. This is in a view script (.phtml). This file is part of a Zend_View object (the same Zend_View object as in #2). So $this->message is the message variable of the view object (which was set from the controller).

4. $this->escape() is a function of the view that escapes the data for html output. It's basically a wrapper around htmlentities.