Why Create My Own MVC Framework?

[sukishan]

Why Create My Own MVC Framework?This article doesn't really advocate "You should write your own MVC web framework!" as is tries to explain "This is how MVC web frameworks work in theory, and why they are so great."

As of this writing, there are very few true MVC frameworks written in PHP. In fact, there is only one that I know of, Solar, that is entirely pure PHP 5 code. Another one out there is Cake, which is trying to be the "Ruby on Rails of PHP." I, personally, have a few problems with both of these frameworks. Both Solar and Cake fail to leverage existing code in PEAR, Smarty, etc. Cake appears a bit disorganized at the moment. Finally, Solar is the work of mostly a single person (not that Paul isn't a great coder or person, but there is only a single gatekeeper at the time of this writing). These may not be issues that concern you, and if they don't concern you, by all means check these two out.

The Old Way
If I could go back in time and look at code I wrote in early 2001, I would find a file called template.txt that looked something like:

<?php

require_once('config.php'); // Other requires, DB info, etc.

$APP_DB = 'mydb';
$APP_REQUIRE_LOGIN = false; // Set to true if script requires login
$APP_TEMPLATE_FILE = 'foo.php'; // Smarty template
$APP_TITLE = 'My Application';

if ($APP_REQUIRE_LOGIN == true) {
    if (!isset($_SESSION['userID'])) {
        header("Location: /path/to/login.php");
        exit();
    }
}

$db = DB::connect('mysql://&#039;.$DB_USER.':'.$DB_PASS.'@localhost/'.$APP_DB);
if (!PEAR::isError($db)) {
    $db->setFetchMode(DB_FETCHMODE_ASSOC);
} else {
    die($db->getMessage());
}

// Put your logic here

// Output the template
include_once(APP_TEMPLATE_PATH.'/header.php');
include_once(APP_TEMPLATE_PATH.'/'.$APP_TEMPLATE_FILE);
include_once(APP_TEMPLATE_PATH.'/footer.php');

?>