Controllers

A Controller is a class file that stands in between the models and the views in an application. It passes information on to the model when data needs to be changed and it requests information from the model when data needs to be loaded. Controllers then pass on the information of the model to the views where the final output can be rendered for the users. Controllers essentially control the flow of the application.

Controllers are called by the Request::execute() function based on the Route that the url matched. Be sure to read the routing page to understand how to use routes to map urls to your controllers.

Creating Controllers

In order to function, a controller must do the following:

• Reside in classes/controller (or a sub-directory)
• Filename must be lowercase, e.g. articles.php
• The class name must map to the filename (with / replaced with _) and each word is capitalized
• Must have the Controller class as a (grand)parent

Some examples of controller names and file locations:

// classes/controller/foobar.php
class Controller_Foobar extends Controller {

// classes/controller/admin.php
class Controller_Admin extends Controller {

Controllers can be in sub-folders:

// classes/controller/baz/bar.php
class Controller_Baz_Bar extends Controller {

// classes/controller/product/category.php
class Controller_Product_Category extends Controller {

Note that controllers in sub-folders can not be called by the default route, you will need to define a route that has a directory param or sets a default value for directory.

Controllers can extend other controllers.

// classes/controller/users.php
class Controller_Users extends Controller_Template

// classes/controller/api.php
class Controller_Api extends Controller_REST

Controller_Template is an example controller provided in Kohana.

You can also have a controller extend another controller to share common things, such as requiring you to be logged in to use all of those controllers.

// classes/controller/admin.php
class Controller_Admin extends Controller {
    // This controller would have a before() that checks if the user is logged in

// classes/controller/admin/plugins.php
class Controller_Admin_Plugins extends Controller_Admin {
    // Because this controller extends Controller_Admin, it would have the same logged in check

$this->request

Every controller has the $this->request property which is the Request object that called the controller. You can use this to get information about the current request, as well as set the response body via $this->response->body($ouput).

Here is a partial list of the properties and methods available to $this->request. These can also be accessed via Request::instance(), but $this->request is provided as a shortcut. See the Request class for more information on any of these.

$this->response

$this->response->body() | The content to return for this request $this->response->status() | The HTTP status for the request (200, 404, 500, etc.) $this->response->headers() | The HTTP headers to return with the response

Actions

You create actions for your controller by defining a public function with an action_ prefix. Any method that is not declared as public and prefixed with action_ can NOT be called via routing.

An action method will decide what should be done based on the current request, it controls the application. Did the user want to save a blog post? Did they provide the necessary fields? Do they have permission to do that? The controller will call other classes, including models, to accomplish this. Every action should set $this->response->body($view) to the view file to be sent to the browser, unless it redirected or otherwise ended the script earlier.

A very basic action method that simply loads a view file.

public function action_hello()
{
    $this->response->body(View::factory('hello/world')); // This will load views/hello/world.php
}

Parameters

Parameters are accessed by calling $this->request->param('name') where name is the name defined in the route.

// Assuming Route::set('example','<controller>(/<action>(/<id>(/<new>)))');

public function action_foobar()
{
    $id = $this->request->param('id');
    $new = $this->request->param('new');

If that parameter is not set it will be returned as NULL. You can provide a second parameter to set a default value if that param is not set.

public function action_foobar()
{
    // $id will be false if it was not supplied in the url
    $id = $this->request->param('user',FALSE);

Examples

A view action for a product page.

public function action_view()
{
    $product = new Model_Product($this->request->param('id'));

    if ( ! $product->loaded())
    {
        throw new HTTP_Exception_404('Product not found!');
    }

    $this->response->body(View::factory('product/view')
        ->set('product', $product));
}

A user login action.

public function action_login()
{
    $view = View::factory('user/login');

    if ($this->request->post())
    {
        // Try to login
        if (Auth::instance()->login($this->request->post('username'), $this->request->post('password')))
        {
            Request::current()->redirect('home');
        }

        $view->errors = 'Invalid email or password';
    }

    $this->response->body($view);
}

Before and after

You can use the before() and after() functions to have code executed before or after the action is executed. For example, you could check if the user is logged in, set a template view, loading a required file, etc.

For example, if you look in Controller_Template you can see that in the be

You can check what action has been requested (via $this->request->action) and do something based on that, such as requiring the user to be logged in to use a controller, unless they are using the login action.

// Checking auth/login in before, and redirecting if necessary:

Controller_Admin extends Controller {

    public function before()
    {
        // If this user doesn't have the admin role, and is not trying to login, redirect to login
        if ( ! Auth::instance()->logged_in('admin') AND $this->request->action !== 'login')
        {
            $this->request->redirect('admin/login');
        }
    }

    public function action_login() {
        ...

Custom __construct() function

In general, you should not have to change the __construct() function, as anything you need for all actions can be done in before(). If you need to change the controller constructor, you must preserve the parameters or PHP will complain. This is so the Request object that called the controller is available. Again, in most cases you should probably be using before(), and not changing the constructor, but if you really, really need to it should look like this:

// You should almost never need to do this, use before() instead!

// Be sure Kohana_Request is in the params
public function __construct(Request $request, Response $response)
{
    // You must call parent::__construct at some point in your function
    parent::__construct($request, $response);

    // Do whatever else you want
}

Extending other controllers

TODO: More description and examples of extending other controllers, multiple extension, etc.