Getting started with Cake MVC PHP framework for programmers

Disclaimer: I am learning this framework while writing this tutorial. So expect some noob errors.

Lets get started with the Cake framework. You can check out there website here.

Composer is required to run this application. So make sure you have this installed.

Installation

You can view the installation guidelines on their site here.

You need to have the php extension extension=php_intl.dll installed to continue this is very important.

To install php_intl.dll I ran the following command. It might be different for you. Use the correct php versions for you.

sudo apt-get install php7.0-intl

[cake_fig_install_command.png]

Once all the requirements are complete you can run the composer command to make the app.

composer create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app cake-tutorial

[Comment]

Errors in installing

I experience errors when trying to install. For one I didnt have php_intl.dll installed. That means that when I ran the composer command to create the app I also have to run the composer install command after I installed php_intl.dll because the required packages were not installed.

Also in the config/app.default.php file was changed to config/app.php so that the application works. [/Comment]

Be sure to create development domain name in your hosts file and add a special vhost configuration if you are using XAMPP.

Once the composer command is successful you will have created your app.

[cake_fig_install_complete.png]

Hello World App

Lets create a standard hello world app. First we create a new Controller called DashboardController.php. We create this file in the src/Controller folder. We add the code below.

<?php


namespace App\Controller;


class DashboardController extends AppController
{

    public function home(){
        echo "Hello World";
    }
}

In our config/routes.php file we add a new route to show our hello world app.

 $routes->connect('/dashboard/home', ['controller' => 'Dashboard', 'action' => 'home']);

Thats it. You can see the hello world at the top in the image below. The rest of the page has an error but that's fine.

[cake_fig_hello_world.png]

Directory Structure

Three folders we can note the config folder the src folder and the webroot folder. These are the main directory listings. In the src folder we have more folders that are important.

/config - You config files
 app.php
 bootsrap.php
 routes.php - your routing file
/src
  controler/
    AppController.php
    DashboardController.php
  Model/
  Template/
  View/
/webroot/
   css/
   font/
   image/
   js/
   index.php

Routing

Our routing file is located in the config/routes.php we can add routes to any function in our controller. Lets try this out. Lets create a new function in our dashboard controller called help.

public function help(){
    $this->viewBuilder()->setLayout(false);
    echo "a help page";
}

[Comment]

Disabling the layout

The $this->autoRender = false; allows us to stop the auto rendering for controllers. In our hello world example we add some errors because no layout was found this is because the auto render looks for the layout automatically. We can disable this feature so we wouldn't have this error.

If you want go back and try the hello world using the code

public function home(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "hello world";
}

[\Comment]

If we create a function in dashboard like

public function faq(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "this is the faq";
}

We can access this using http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/faq. Our base domain is dev.cakeapp.com. This means that we dont need to add a route in the routes.php file. However we can add a route

$routes->connect('/dashboard/questions', ['controller' => 'Dashboard', 'action' => 'faq']);

Above we map the dashboard/questions url to the faq function in dashboard.

Routing can do alot. You can learn more here.

Controllers

We have already worked with controllers.Lets continue. Controllers are the C in MVC. In our DashboardController.php lets create another function called logs;

public function logs( ){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "this is the logs";
}

We can get data from our url in our controller lets try that. Lets pass and id to our logs function.

public function logs( ){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "this is the logs" . $_GET['id'];
}

Now we navigate to http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/logs?id=3 and we will see the proper message.

We can add more variables

public function logs( $id, $type ){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "this is the logs" . $id . ' ' . $type;
}

And navigate to http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/logs/3/errors and we will see the proper message.

We can change this up. Add the code below

public function logs( $id ){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    echo "this is the logs" . $id;
}

Now we can navigate to http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/logs/3 and we will see the proper message.

Lets create a private function called users. When we navigate to http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/users

private function users(){
    echo "users";
}

we get an error. We cant use private functions as url actions. The error page is shown below.

[cake_fig_private_users.png]

Rendering Views

We can render views in our controllers by using the $this->render() function. Templates for our views are located in the src/Template/ directory.

Lets create a view for our users. In src/Template/Dashboard directory create a file called users_view.ctp and add the code below.

If the Dashboard folder doesnt exists create it.

<?php

echo "showing users";

Now make sure our DashboardController.php has the correct function

public function users(){
    $this->viewBuilder()->setLayout(false);
    $this->render("users_view");
}

The $this->viewBuilder()->setLayout(false) removes any pre set templates. You can remove it to see how the page will render without it.

[cake_fig_no_layout.png]

Lets create a members view. Add the code below to your controller.

public function members(){

}

Now create the members.ctp file in src/Template/Dashboard/members.ctp. You can add the code below in the file

<?php
echo "showing the members template";

If you navigate to http://dev.cakeapp.com/dashboard/members the contents of members.ctp will be rendered. This happens automatically. We don't have to use the $this->render() function if our function is the same name as the file to be rendered. Its suggested that we do though.

Passing data from controller

If you want to pass data from the controller to the view/template you can use the $this->set() function.

public function members(){
    $this->set('members',['wynton','james']);
    $this->render();
}

In our members.ctp file we display the members array using

<?php
foreach($members as $member){
    echo $member .'<br>';
}

Lets try it a different way. We create a data array and then use the set function in our controller

public function members(){
    $data = [
        'name' => 'Wynton',
        'age' => '23',
        'dob' => 'neveruary'
    ];
    $this->set($data);
    $this->render();
}

Now in our members.ctp we can add the following

<h1>Welcome to a members view</h1>
<h2>enjoy your stay</h2>
<p>The member is <?= h($name) ?>  he is <?= h($age) ?> 
    years old and was born <?= h($dob) ?> </p>

So we can see the results. The h() function is used to escape user content.

[cake_fig_data_to_view.png]

Layouts

Lets go to the src/Layout folder and copy the default.ctp and name the copied file main.ctp. The main thing to do in main.ctp is to add an h1 element as the page title.

<?= $this->Flash->render() ?>
<h1><?= $pageTitle;?></h1>
<div class="container clearfix">
    <?= $this->fetch('content') ?>
</div>

Now in the DashboardController.php we can set the layout to be the main.ctp.

public function members(){
    $this->viewBuilder()->setLayout('main');
    $data = [
        'name' => 'Wynton',
        'age' => '23',
        'dob' => 'neveruary',
    ];
    $this->set('pageTitle', "Page Title");
    $this->set($data);
    $this->render();
}

Notice our content is being pulled into the main.ctp layout using the <?= $this->fetch('content') ?>. In between this we have the rest of our layout.

[cake_fig_layout_sample.png]

Views

Views are are classes and the view templates are the ctp files that we created earlier. Lets look at create a view template.

In the DashboardController.php we create a new view

public function guide(){
    $this->render();
}

Then we create the view template in src/Template/Dashboard/guide.ctp.

<?php

echo "hello to the guide";

What else can we do in a view template. Lets change our layout

public function guide(){
    $this->viewBuilder()->setLayout('main');
    $this->render();
}

Now in our view we can change the pageTitle

<?php

$this->set('pageTitle', "This is the guide page");
$guideTitle = "Hello to the guide";
echo "<h1>" . $guideTitle . "</h1>";

echo "hello to the guide";

[cake_fig_view_pagetitle.png]

Database

In order to use our cake model easily cake has some conventions that we should follow. You can check them out here.

Lets create a table to play with.

CREATE TABLE `countries` (
  `country_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `country_name` varchar(65) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`country_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

You can insert data from a datasource or get the csv file from here.

Now lets update our database configuration in Cake. Head to the config/app.php file. Find the database configuration part and add the correct information.

[cake_fig_database_config.png]

Now lets get into our models.

Models, Tables, Entity classes

With Cake we can use different methods to access our database tables.

Table Registry Class

To use this class at the top of the controller we can add.

use Cake\ORM\TableRegistry;

Now we create a new route to display our countries in DashboardController.php.

public function countries(){
    $articles = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');

    $query = $articles->find();
    $this->set('countries', $query);
    $this->render();
}

In the countries.ctp we add

<?php
foreach ($countries as $row) {
    echo $row->country_name . '<br>';
}

[cake_fig_list_of_countries.png]

Extend the TableRegistry

We can create an extension by create teh following code in src/Model/Table. We create a CountriesTable.php class.

<?php


namespace App\Model\Table;

use Cake\ORM\Table;

class CountriesTable extends Table
{

}

Now when we call $articles = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries') we are getting and instance of CountriesTable. You can test this yourself by making modifications to the countries function.

public function countries(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $articles = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    echo get_class($articles);
}

Learn more about tables here.

Entity Classes

We can create an entity class by adding the following code in the src/Model/Entity folder. We will name our class Country.php.

<?php


namespace App\Model\Entity;


use Cake\ORM\Entity;

class Country extends Entity
{

}

Now in our CoutriesTable.php we need to tell it what Entity class to use. We add the initialize function and use the setEntityClass function in it.

public function initialize(array $config)
{
    $this->setEntityClass('App\Model\Entity\Country');
    parent::initialize($config); // TODO: Change the autogenerated stub
}

Now we are using our entity class in our view (countries.ctp). The $row is an instance of Country.php.

<?php
foreach ($countries as $row) {
    echo get_class($row) . '<br>';
}

We can create virtual fields in our entity class. Below we add the _getCountrySpecialName function

public function _getCountrySpecialName(){
  return "The country name is: (" . $this->country_name . ")";
}

We can use this in our view like

<?php
foreach ($countries as $row) {
    echo $row->get("countrySpecialName") . '<br>';
}

The output shows

[cake_fig_virutal_fields.png]

Saving data

We can save a new entry to our countries table by using the TableRegistry class.

Lets create a create function in our DashboardController.php.

public function create(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $country = $countryTb->newEntity();
    $country->country_name = "Wynton Island";
    $countryTb->save($country);
    echo var_dump($country);

}

We use the TableRegistry to get and Table instance of Countries. We request a new entity using $countryTb->newEntity().

We then create a new country $country->country_name. And then we save it using

$countryTb->save($country);

In the database we can see our results.

[cake_fig_database_countries_new.png]

Updating a entity

Lets create an update function in our DashboardController.php and use it to update an entity.

public function update(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $country = $countryTb->get(1000);
    $country->country_name = "Wynton Updated Island";
    $countryTb->save($country);
    echo var_dump($country);
}

One of the important things to note in the above code is $countryTb->get(1000). We use the get function on the TableRegistry class to get result sets by the primary key.

[cake_fig_database_countries_updated.png]

Getting data from the database

In the DashboardController.php lets create a view function and try to get results from the database using different methods.

By Primary Key

We can get data via the primary key

public function view(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $country = $countryTb->get(1);
    echo $country->country_name;
}

Find All with limit

Lets get all the countries with a limit.

public function view(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $countries = $countryTb->find("all")->limit(5);
    foreach ($countries as $country){
        echo $country->country_name . "<br>";
    }
}

[cake_fig_all_countries.png]

Find all with like query

Lets get all the countries that begin with a limit 100.

public function view(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $countries = $countryTb->find("all",[
        'conditions' => 'Countries.country_name LIKE "a%"'
    ])->limit(100);
    foreach ($countries as $country){
        echo $country->country_name . "<br>";
    }
}

Find by specific name

lets get the country trinidad. We use $country = $countries->first() to get the first result.

public function view(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $countries = $countryTb->find("all",[
        'conditions' => 'Countries.country_name = "Trinidad ( T&T)"'
    ])->limit(100);
    $country = $countries->first();
    echo $country->country_name . "<br>";
}

Learn more here.

Forms

Lets create a form. First we create a new route in the DashboardController.php

public function form(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    $model = $countryTb->newEntity();
    $this->set('model',$model);
    $this->render();
}

In our view form.ctp we can start building the form using the model we passed.

<div style="margin: 15px auto; max-width: 60%;">
<?php
echo $this->Form->create($model);
echo $this->Form->control('country_name', ['type' => 'text']);
echo $this->Form->button('Submit',['type'=>'submit']);
echo $this->Form->end();
?>
</div>

This will output the image below.

[cake_fig_form_view.png]

We can look at the generated html that the form creates

[cake_fig_form_html.png]

Form submission

When we press the form submit button we submit the form back to the original route at /dashboard/form. How do we handle this the code below show us

public function form(){
    $this->autoRender = false;
    $countryTb = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Countries');
    if(isset($_POST['country_name'])){
        $model = $countryTb->newEntity();
        $model->country_name = $_POST['country_name'];
        $countryTb->save($model);
        echo "Country " . $model->country_name . " saved";
    }else{
        $model = $countryTb->newEntity();
        $this->set('model',$model);
        $this->render();
    }
}

We check if the form is submitted using isset($_POST['country_name']) function. We then go on to save the new country $countryTb->save($model);.

If not form is submitted we just render the form as shown in the else section. You can learn more about forms here.

Conclusion

We looked at many different part of working with Cake the PHP framework. Be sure to checkout their cookbook to learn more. This tutorial used the Cake 3.8.5 version.

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Getting started with Cake MVC PHP framework for programmers

Installation

Errors in installing

Hello World App

Directory Structure

Routing

Disabling the layout

Controllers

Rendering Views

Passing data from controller

Layouts

Views

Database

Models, Tables, Entity classes

Table Registry Class

Extend the TableRegistry

Entity Classes

Saving data

Updating a entity

Getting data from the database

By Primary Key

Find All with limit

Find all with like query

Find by specific name

Forms

Form submission

Conclusion

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Tutorial.md

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Getting started with Cake MVC PHP framework for programmers

Installation

Errors in installing

Hello World App

Directory Structure

Routing

Disabling the layout

Controllers

Rendering Views

Passing data from controller

Layouts

Views

Database

Models, Tables, Entity classes

Table Registry Class

Extend the TableRegistry

Entity Classes

Saving data

Updating a entity

Getting data from the database

By Primary Key

Find All with limit

Find all with like query

Find by specific name

Forms

Form submission

Conclusion