PHP Luminova: Base Class for HTTP Routing View Controllers

The BaseViewController is the fundamental component of Luminova's MVC component, serving as an important intermediary for managing view operations. This core class offers a structured approach to accepts instructions from the router and transmitting the relevant information to the template class for rendering views.

It establishes a solid foundation for building interactive and optimized web applications, well-suited for client-side rendering. While its primary focus is not limited to frontend operations, it also suitable for backend applications, ensuring consistency between frontend and backend functionalities.

• Class namespace: \Luminova\Base\BaseViewController
• This class is an Abstract class

Usages

To use BaseViewController class, you will need to extend it whenever you want create a new view controller class.

Below is an example of how a basic view controller class may look like, in this example we use __construct, optionally you can use onCreate method instead.

// app/Controllers/Http/FrontendController.php
<?php 
namespace App\Controllers\Http;

use \luminova\Base\BaseViewController;

class FrontendController extends BaseViewController 
{
    protected function onCreate(): void
    {
        // Initialization implementation
    }

    public function user(): int 
    {
        return $this->view('user', [
            'foo' => 'bar'
        ]);
    }
}

Properties

Access to HTTP request object.

protected ?\Luminova\Http\Request $request = null;

Access to input validation object.

protected ?\Luminova\Security\Validation $validate = null;

Access to application object.

protected ?\App\Application $app = null;

Note: In BaseViewController, the $validate or $request object is not initialized by default.To use access it properties you must first initialized it in __construct or onCreate method by calling the proper method to create it e.g $this->request().

Methods

request

Initializes the HTTP request class instance.

protected final request(): \Luminova\Http\Request

Return Value:

Request - Return request class instance.

validate

Initializes the input validation class instance.

protected final validate(): \Luminova\Security\Validation

Return Value:

Validation - Return input validation class instance.

app

Initializes the application class instance.

protected final app(): \App\Application

Return Value:

Application - Return application class instance.

view

The view method serves as a convenient alias or shorthand for rendering views within the ViewController class. It is equivalent to $this->app->view('view_file')->render().

protected final view(string $view, array $options = [], string $type = 'html'): int

Return Value:

int - Return STATUS_SUCCESS on success, otherwise STATUS_ERROR failure.

Parameters:

respond

The respond method is also a convenient alias or shorthand for returning view contents within the ViewController class. It is equivalent to $this->app->view('view_file')->respond().

protected final respond(string $view, array $options = [], string $type = 'html'): string

Return Value:

string - Return view contents which is ready to be rendered.

Parameters:

View Types:

Any of these types are supported view type argument for respond and view method.

• html - View will render HTML content.
• json - View will render JSON content.
• text - View will render Plain text content.
• xml - View will render XML content.
• js - View will render JavaScript content.
• css - View will render CSS content.
• rdf - View will render RDF content.
• atom - View will render Atom content.
• rss - View will render RSS feed content.

onCreate

The onCreate method serves as an alternative to __construct. It is invoked after the controller class has completed its initialization via the constructor method. When using this method for initialization, there is no need to explicitly call parent::__construct().

protected onCreate(): void

onDestroy

The onDestroy method acts as an alternative to __destruct. It is called after the __destruct method has completed its execution.

protected onDestroy(): void