PHP Manual: Quick Start

Quick Start

Example #1 A classic Application directory layout

- .htaccess           // Rewrite rules
+ public/
  | - index.php       // Application entry
  | + css/
  | + js/
  | + img/
+ conf/
  | - application.ini // Application config
- application/
  - Bootstrap.php     // Bootstrap
  + controllers/
     - Index.php      // Default controller
  + views/
     |+ index/
        - index.phtml // View template for default action
  + library/          // Libraries
  + models/           // Models
  + plugins/          // Plugins

Set the web server DocumentRoot to the public directory, so that only the public assets are accessible from the web.

Example #2 A multi-module Application directory layout

+ public/
+ conf/
+ application/
  + modules/
    + Index/       //default module
      + controllers/
      + views/
    + Admin/       //another module
      + controllers/
      + views/
  + library/
  + models/
  + plugins/
  - Bootstrap.php

In a multi-module application, each module has its own controllers and views directory under application/modules/<ModuleName>/. The registered modules are declared in application.modules.

Example #3 Entry

index.php in the public directory is the only way into the application, you should rewrite all requests to it (you can use .htaccess in Apache + mod_php, or the equivalent in your web server, see below).

<?php
define("APPLICATION_PATH",  dirname(dirname(__FILE__)));

$app  = new Yaf_Application(APPLICATION_PATH . "/conf/application.ini");
$app->bootstrap() //call bootstrap methods defined in Bootstrap.php
 ->run();
?>

Example #4 Rewrite rule

#for apache (.htaccess)
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* index.php

#for nginx
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name domain.com;
  root   document_root;
  index  index.php index.html index.htm;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
  }
}

#for lighttpd
$HTTP["host"] =~ "(www.)?domain.com$" {
  url.rewrite = (
     "^/(.+)/?$"  => "/index.php/$1",
  )
}

Example #5 Bootstrap

Any method of the Bootstrap class whose name begins with _init is automatically called, in definition order, by Yaf_Application::bootstrap(). Each such method receives the Yaf_Dispatcher instance as its argument. Methods with other names are not called automatically.

<?php
class Bootstrap extends Yaf_Bootstrap_Abstract
{
    public function _initConfig(Yaf_Dispatcher $dispatcher)
    {
        // called first
    }

    public function _initPlugin(Yaf_Dispatcher $dispatcher)
    {
        // called second
    }

    public function _initRoute(Yaf_Dispatcher $dispatcher)
    {
        // called third
    }
}
?>

Example #6 Application config

application.ini is the application configuration file. Constants defined in index.php can be used in it, and sections can inherit from one another.

[yaf]
;APPLICATION_PATH is the constant defined in index.php
application.directory=APPLICATION_PATH "/application/"

;product section inherit from yaf section
[product:yaf]
foo=bar

Example #7 Application config as a PHP array

Besides an INI configuration file, a plain PHP array can also be passed to Yaf_Application::__construct() as the configuration.

<?php
$config = array(
    "application" => array(
        "directory" => APPLICATION_PATH . "/application/",
    ),
);

$app = new Yaf_Application($config);
?>

Example #8 Default controller

In Yaf, the default controller is named IndexController:

<?php
class IndexController extends Yaf_Controller_Abstract
{
    // default action name
    public function indexAction()
    {
        $this->getView()->content = "Hello World";
    }
}
?>

Example #9 Default view template

The view script for the default controller/action is application/views/index/index.phtml. Yaf provides a small view engine called Yaf_View_Simple, whose templates are plain PHP scripts.

<html>
 <head>
   <title>Hello World</title>
 </head>
 <body>
   <?php echo $content;?>
 </body>
</html>

Example #10 Run the Application

Point the browser at the configured domain (e.g. http://www.example.com) and the response will look like:

The above example will output something similar to:

<html>
 <head>
   <title>Hello World</title>
 </head>
 <body>
   hello world
 </body>
</html>

Note:
The minimal example above can also be generated with the Yaf code generator (tools/cg/yaf_cg), which ships with the » Yaf source repository:
$ cd tools/cg
$ ./yaf_cg -d output_directory [-a application_name] [--namespace]
yaf_cg generates a more complete, commented skeleton than the one shown in this tutorial: a public/ entry with rewrite rules, a Bootstrap with configuration, plugin and custom-route setup, an example model, an error controller and view templates. It is a good starting point for a real application.