MVC is a popular design pattern or architectural hierarchy widely implemented for the creation of web applications these days. This is a software architectural pattern which allows the fragmentation of a web application in three parts - Model, View and Controller. View represents the user interface layer or representation of data to the user based on the changes implemented in the model, while the model is responsible for storing the data that is extracted from the commands enabled from controller and that is displayed on the view. Last but not the least controller is the mediator between view and model and is responsible to send commands to model for state update and to the view for change of its representation based on the data from the model.
- CakePHP development based on MVC:
Now-a-days most of the CakePHP development work is done based on this architectural pattern as this enables for separation of presentation of the web application from the logic thereby making it easy for the developers to work on and modify the web applications at any time. This saves up the time and efforts of the developers because modifications in data or logic of the application would not require any changes to be done in presentation and vice versa. Moreover the convention-over-configuration methodology of CakePHP platform makes coding easier for the developers who are now required to develop shorter code for the development of CakePHP applications.
- Model Creation:
At the very first step in creation of web page with CakePHP is model creation. However, the basic requirement here is that CakePHP is installed on the local server and database should be set up following with the creation of a products table. You need to create a model that corresponds to the table developed in the database. According to the naming conventions of Cake, the model names should be singular while the table names are always defined in plural terms. Now you can create a web page with .php extension in directory cake_root/app/models. Now that you have created a new blank PHP file, you can start coding in it.
The simplest form of model here is PHP class declaration. Here one thing to understand is that model is meant for collection of the available data as discussed in introduction earlier. Once the data is collected, it is transferred to the appropriate controller.
- Creating Controller:
Naming controllers is lot easier in CakePHP. All you need to do is to add “controller” to the table name and if it’s a file name then you can go for adding an underscore. You can create a controller as “filename_controller.php” at cake_root/app/controllers. So, as you have now created a new, blank controller file within the directory specified you are now ready to code it.
The main purpose of controller is to gather relevant data from model and display it on view. As applications become complicated controllers too become complex. Hence, the use of index() function is recommended. Here we put the data collected inside this function and pass on to the view and this data passing is done with a controller called set(). Here all the data collected from the products table is passed to the view with a data variable set by the function.
- View Creation:
Create a view file initially. Actually views are present in each of the controller folders, whose names are based on methods in controller. Hence, a view is created in directory called cake_root/app/views/products/ as cake_root/app/views/products/index.php. Actually one thing to understand here is that views are not the complete HTML files instead they are present in layout file of the page where there can be many elements other than view also.
Hence, this is how a basic web page using CakePHP can be created with MVC pattern. However, for those looking to develop CakePHP website or web application opting for expert services can be a good idea. For those looking for professional CakePHP development services, Brainvire can provide the best in the town for customized needs at a competitive price.
