My Action controller and View classes need to be seperated +/- Design question..

[cgm225]

I am still very new to PHP, and am creating a simple MVC front controller.  Everything works, but I have an ActionController class that basically contains my MVC "View" functionality within the displayView() function.  I want to split the following class into (1) an ActionController class and (2) View class.  How would you split this class into those?  What subclasses would you include where?  I guess this is an opinion/best practice question.  I just want to make sure I am keeping my business and presentation logic seperated.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

<?php

abstract class ActionController {

    //Declaring variables
    protected $name;
    protected $viewData = array();
    protected $content;
    
    private static $pageDir;

    //Setting the page directory, which is passed from the FrontController
    public static function setPageDir($pageDir){
        self::$pageDir = $pageDir;
    }

    public function setName($name) {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }

    //Placing a value in the $viewData array at the key postion
    public function setVar($key, $value) {
        $this->viewData[$key] = $value;
    }

    //Returns a value from the $viewData array located at the key position
    public function getVar($key) {
        if (array_key_exists($key, $this->viewData)) {
            return $this->viewData[$key];
        }
    }
    
    /*
        Checking for actionMethod in the Actions class (example: doFrontpage() within home/HomeActions.php5)
        with the method_exists function and, if present, the actionMethod and displayView functions are
        executed.
    */
    
    public function dispatchAction($action) {
        $actionMethod = "do" . ucfirst($action);
        if (!method_exists($this, $actionMethod)) {
            throw new FrontControllerException("Action Method not found!");
        }

        $this->$actionMethod();
        $this->displayView($action);
    }

    public function displayView($action) {
        if (!is_file(self::$pageDir . "/" . $this->getName() . "/" . $action . "View.php5")) {
            throw new FrontControllerException("Action View not found!");
        }

        //This foreach function goes over all of the elements in $this->viewData array, creates
        //a variable for every value, and the name of the value (the variable name) is the key's value.
        foreach ($this->viewData as $key => $value) {
            $$key = $value;
        }
         
        $this->content = PAGE_DIR . "/" . $this->getName() . "/" . $action . "View.php5";
        include_once PAGE_DIR . "/template.php5";
    }

    public function __set($key, $value)  {
        $this->setVar($key, $value);
    }

    public function __get($key) {
        return $this->getVar($key);
    }
}

?>

[cgm225]

bump

[Daniel0]

Well, you could remove all methods that deal with views and move them into another class. You could then an instance of a view in the ActionController constructor as a class property.

[cgm225]

Would you show me how you would split it?

 

Thanks again.

[Daniel0]

Perhaps like this:

 

<?php
class View
{
protected $data = array(); // old: ActionController:$viewData

public function get($key); // old: ActionController::getVar();
public function __get($key);
public function set($key, $value); // old: ActionController::setVar();
public function __set($key, $value);
public function display($action); // old: ActionController::view();
}

class ActionController
{
protected $name;
protected $content;

/**
 * @var View
 */
protected $view;

private static $pageDir;

public function __construct()
{
	// somehow set the view:
	$this->view = $theView;
}

// etc.
}
?>

 

I didn't bother to write the method bodies.