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Hi all, I have just put together a tentative proof of concept MVC framework proposal. After many weeks of slogging through an array of PHP MVC tutorials and courses (some of which I paid for) I have decided to strip back all the frills, bells and whistles to try and put together a core proof of concept that uses best practices. In this simplified example I am trying to test the viability of the framework itself... so there is no routing code or query string management and the controller and action are hard coded. Here is the repository: https://github.com/JethroHazelhurst/psr-4-mvc I like this framework because it: Has clear seperation of concerns Is not cluttered with static functions Is clearly namespaced - thanks to the PSR-4 autoloading Has a clear way of passing data to and from the model - e.g. $this->_view->foo = $this->_model->getBar(); Below is the directory structure: and here is a print_r of my Object structure: Questions I am interested in hearing any feedback on the idea... I can't see any glaring issues at them moment. Some questions in the back of my mind are: Are there any dangers in heavily depending on the parent::__construct() function to call parent classes? In the controller, is passing data from Model to View using $this->_view->foo = $this->_model->getBar(); good practice? Are there any dangers in using Namespaces? I am also interested in reading up on MVC framework best practices so if anyone can recommend some resources I would be very grateful. It seems like there are a million ways to write an MVC framework, I am confused as to which way is best practice. EDIT: Hmm, can't seem to get a list to display here...

Hi everyone, I have been working through various tutorials over the past couple of months and am currently trying understand PHP frameworks. One of the ways I am doing this is by trying to design my own very simple MVC framework from scratch. I am trying to re-factor an application (which I have already built using spaghetti procedural PHP). This application has a front end for teachers and a back-end for the administrators. I would like to separate concerns and have URL's like this http://example.com/{module}/{controller}/{method}/{param-1}/{param-2} Now the MVC framework I have cobbled together up to this point does not handle routing for 'modules' (I apologise if this is not the correct terminology), only the controller/method/params. So I have separated the public_html from the app logic and inside of the /app/ folder I have specified two folders, my default "learn module" and the "admin module" so that the directory tree looks like this: Apparently this design pattern is a "H"MVC? My Solution I am basically making use if the is_dir(); function to check if there is a "module" directory (such as "admin") and then unsetting the first URL array element $url[0] and reindexing the array to 0... then I am changing the controller path according to the URL... the code should be clearer... <?php class App { protected $_module = 'learn'; // default module --> learn protected $_controller = 'home'; // default controller --> home protected $_method = 'index'; // default method --> index protected $_params = []; // default paramatars --> empty array public function __construct() { $url = $this->parseUrl(); // returns the url array // Checks if $url[0] is a module else it is a controller if (!empty($url) && is_dir('../app/' . $url[0])) { $this->_module = $url[0]; // if it is a model then assign it unset($url[0]); if (!empty($url[1]) && file_exists('../app/' . $this->_module . '/controllers/' . $url[1] . '.php')) { $this->_controller = $url[1]; // if $url[1] is also set, it must be a controller unset($url[1]); $url = array_values($url); // reset the array to zero, we are left with {method}{param}{etc..} } // if $url[0] is not a module then it might be a controller... } else if (!empty($url[0]) && file_exists('../app/' . $this->_module . '/controllers/' . $url[0] . '.php')) { $this->controller = $url[0]; // if it is a controller then assign it unset($url[0]); $url = array_values($url); // reset the array to zero } // else if url is empty default {module}{controller}{method} is loaded // default is ../app/learn/home/index.php require_once '../app/' . $this->_module . '/controllers/' . $this->_controller . '.php'; $this->_controller = new $this->_controller; // if there are methods left in the array if (isset($url[0])) { // and the methods are legit if (method_exists($this->_controller, $url[0])) { // sets the method that we will be using $this->_method = $url[0]; unset($url[0]); } // else nothing is set } // if there is anything else left in $url then it is a parameter $this->_params = $url ? array_values($url) : []; // calling everything call_user_func_array([$this->_controller, $this->_method], $this->_params); } public function parseUrl() { // checks if there is a url to work with if (isset($_GET['url'])) { // explodes the url by the '/' and returns an array of url 'elements' return $url = EXPLODE('/', filter_var(rtrim($_GET['url'], '/'), FILTER_SANITIZE_URL)); } } } this so far appears to be working for me, but..... Question I am not sure if this is the preferred solution to this issue. Is calling the is_dir() check for every page request going slow down my app? How would you engineer a solution or have I completely misunderstood the issue? Many thanks in advance for your time and consideration!! Hazel,