controller – stoimen's web log

How to Dump the Generated Zend_Db SQL Query

Stoimen — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:39:48 +0000

The Typical PHP Approach

Typically a PHP programmer will write his SQL query as a string and will execute it via mysql_query.

$sql = "SELECT * FROM my_table";
$resource = mysql_query($sql);

So eventually when you want to dump this “complex” query, or whatever query there is, you can simply “echo” it and see what’s its syntax.

// this query is WRONG because of the where clause
$sql = "SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE id = ";

// dump and debug the wrong query
die($sql);

// this line won't be executed
$resource = mysql_query($sql);

So far so good, but things appear to be a bit different when you start to work with Zend Framework. Higher levels of abstraction come with slightly more difficult ways to dump (debug) your SQL queries.

OK you’ve two options. Using Zend_Db_Select or … not.

Dump Zend_Db_Select Query

Debugging queries generated with Zend_Db_Select is as easy as the following snippet. Let’s say there’s a db table “users” and typically the model is called Users.

class Users extends Zend_Db_Table
{
	protected $_name = 'users';

	public function getSomeUsers()
	{
		$select = $this->select()
				->from(this->_name)
				->where('id > ');

		$rows = $this->fetchAll($select);
	}
}

Obviously this code is wrong, because the “where” clause is wrong and we don’t pass any values to it. So now the question is how can we dump this SQL. Well, since we use Zend_Db_Select, so the simplest way to dump the SQL is by calling __toString(). The code above will become as follows.

class Users extends Zend_Db_Table
{
	protected $_name = ‘users’;

	public function getSomeUsers()
	{
		$select = $this->select()
				->from(this->_name)
				->where('id > ');

		die($select->__toString());

		$rows = $this->fetchAll($select);
	}
}

That’s great, but how can we dump update/insert queries for instance?

Dump with Zend_Db_Profiler

The way you should dump insert or update queries is a bit different. You should use Zend_Db_Profiler, which is a more complex way to debug (profile) your queries. You can not only debug insert or update queries, of course, but any queries generated by the Zend_Db abstraction. Let’s see how.

Now from a controller perspective this model can be just called as:

$users = new Users();
$users->update(array('name' => 'my name'), 'id =');

Obviously this code is wrong, again because of the where clause and now the question is how we can debug the generated SQL. The answer is: using Zend_Db_Profiler. Looking back again to the model, this should look like this.

class Users extends Zend_Db_Table
{
	protected $_name = ‘users’;

	public function updateSomeUsers()
	{
		// first enable the profiler
		$this->getProfiler()->setEnabled(true);

		// try to execute
		$this->update(array('name' => 'my name'), 'id = ');

		// dump the SQL
		Zend_Debug::dump($this->getProfiler()->getLastQueryProfile()->getQuery());

		// don't forget to disable the profiler is
		// you don't need it anymore
		$this->getProfiler()->setEnabled(false);
	}
}

The thing is that since Zend_Db is using prepared statements, the last row (the one with the Zend_Debug::…) will dump something like the following line.

UPDATE `users` SET `name` = ? WHERE (id =)

So as you can see, actually here you don’t see the name’s value, which should be “my name”. To see this you should call getQueryParams().

class Users extends Zend_Db_Table
{
	protected $_name = 'users';

	public function updateSomeUsers()
	{
		// first enable the profiler
		$this->getProfiler()->setEnabled(true);

		// try to execute
		$this->update(array('name' => 'my name'), 'id = ');

		// dump the SQL
		Zend_Debug::dump($this->getProfiler()->getLastQueryProfile()->getQuery());
		Zend_Debug::dump($this->getProfiler()->getLastQueryProfile()->getQueryParams());

		// don't forget to disable the profiler is
		// you don't need it anymore
		$this->getProfiler()->setEnabled(false);

Now the debug info will be something like this.

UPDATE `users` SET `name` = ? WHERE (id =)
array
	1 => string 'my name' (length 7)

Calling this from the controller there are some changes. Take a look at the example bellow.

$users = new Users();

// enable the profiler
$users->getAdapter()->getProfiler()->setEnabled(true);

// execute (or at least try to)
$users->update(array('name' => 'my name'), 'id =');

// debugdump the SQL
Zend_Debug::dump($users->getAdapter()->getProfiler()->getLastQueryProfile()->getQuery());
Zend_Debug::dump($users->getAdapter()->getProfiler()->getLastQueryProfile()->getQueryParams());

// don't forget to disable the profiler is
// you don't need it anymore
$users->getAdapter()->getProfiler()->setEnabled(false);

In this case you should use the longer model_name->getAdapter()

Models in Zend Framework – Initialize All Methods with init()

Stoimen — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:05:05 +0000

In the Zend Framework’s documentation there are lots of examples how you can initialize all the actions in a given controller – by simply adding the init() public method in the controller’s code:


But did you know that you can do the same thing with any model in ZF? However you can setup a cache for every method or something else, but definitely it will execute for every method:

Of course that means that directly calling the readAll() function the init() method is called also - automatically.
Conclusion
There are good and bad parts about this. You'll have this code executed for every method and if you have twenty of them and the init() method is practically used for only a couple of the member functions - than this will be useless.

Related posts:

Setting Up Zend Framework with Modules 
Bind Zend Action with Non-Default View – Part 2 
Default Error Handling in Zend Framework 
Zend Framework: Simple Acl Front Controller Plugin

Setting Up Zend Framework with Modules

Stoimen — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:59:21 +0000

Typical Zend App

Typically you’ve one module in your Zend App – the default one. In the basic installation of the framework, you put all the controllers, models and views directly in the application folder, as described below.

/application
	- /controllers
		- /IndexController.php
	- /models
		- /MyModel.php
	- /views
		- /scripts
			- /index/index.phtml
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Bigger Apps – More Code

When the application becomes bigger and bigger the controller, models and views/scripts directories contain more and more files. That’s a bit odd, because it becomes difficult to maintain, and than the modules come in hand.

Modules in a Zend App

When it comes to setting up modular Zend App there are tons of articles in the web, but let me show you a simple directory layout and … sample code that sets up the framework.

/application
	- /modules
		+ /admin
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
		+ /default
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
	- /models
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Source

Simply add this into the bootstrap:

$frontController->addModuleDirectory(APPLICATION_PATH . '/modules');

Setting Up Global Cache in Zend Framework

Stoimen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:17:48 +0000

In a large scale web application, especially based on Zend Framework, there are lot’s of components that support built in cache support. Such are Zend_Db, Zend_Translate, Zend_Date, etc. Also you may need cache support wherever in the app, so my advice is to setup a cache instance in the “beginning”, into the bootstrap.php or even better – into a front controller plugin, and to store it into the Zend_Registry. Thus you’ve to change only the lifetime for specific needs:

 true,
            'lifetime' => 60
        );

        $backendOptions  = array(
            'cache_dir' => realpath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/../cache')
        );

        $cache = Zend_Cache::factory('Core',
                                     'File',
                                     $frontendOptions,
                                     $backendOptions);

        Zend_Registry::set('cache', $cache);
    }
}

Than add it as a front controller plugin:

// cache plugin
$frontController->registerPlugin(new CacheInit());

Zend Framework: Connect MySQL

Stoimen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:12:45 +0000

There are so many tutorials about that, but let me add it one more time. You’ve to use the PDO_MYSQL adapter:

// where params include adapter, host
// username, password and dbname
$db = new Zend_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql($params);

and set the default adapter

Zend_Db_Table::setDefaultAdapter($db);

That can be done in the bootstrap or into a front controller plugin!

Media RSS and ZF – Part 2

Stoimen — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:05:15 +0000

Here’s the promised chunk of code making the most simple bridge between Zend Framework and Media RSS.

Step 1

Just add a simple action in a controller:

class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
	public function indexAction()
	{
	    $this->getResponse()->setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/xml');
	    $this->view->somevar = 'some value';
	
	    echo $this->view->render('index/index.xml');
	
	    $this->_helper->layout()->disableLayout();
	    $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
	}
}

Step 2

After you’ve setup the xml file as a view script – you can simply access it as a normal Zend Framework view:


  
   <?php echo $this->somevar ?>
   ...
   other media rss elements
   ...

Default Error Handling in Zend Framework

Stoimen — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:28:59 +0000

Zend_Controller_Action_Exception

There’s a cool feature in Zend Framework when a controller or action doesn’t exists. That’s really useful, because you simply write an ErrorController.php in you default module and every action’s exception sends the user to this controller/action and the job is done for you. What is important here is to show the error message at least on the development stage. Actually the request stores it as a parameter. Here’s some source:

getRequest()->getParam('error_handler');
        /* @var $error Zend_Controller_Action_Exception */
        $error = $errorHandler->exception;
        echo $error->getMessage();
    }
}

Zend Framework: Simple Acl Front Controller Plugin

Stoimen — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:00:59 +0000

Almost every web site need some abstraction over the access control list (ACL) to grant access of its users. As usual Zend Framework has quite good mechanism to deal with this – Zend_Acl.

Out in the web there are a lot of resources about Zend_Acl’s usage, so I ain’t going to cover it one more time, but simply copy/paste a very small front controller plugin implementing the basic usage of Zend_Acl.

Note that instead of defining the __construct() here is called preDispatch where the request is passed as a parameter. However only by copy pasting not every answer will be given. That’s why I’m going to write more about Zend_Acl in my future posts, for now only the source code:

add(new Zend_Acl_Resource('index'))
            ->add(new Zend_Acl_Resource('create'))
            ->add(new Zend_Acl_Resource('read'))
            ->add(new Zend_Acl_Resource('update'))
            ->add(new Zend_Acl_Resource('delete'));

        // define roles
        $acl->addRole(new Zend_Acl_Role('guest'))
            ->addRole(new Zend_Acl_Role('admin'));

        // define privileges
        $acl->allow('guest', array('index', 'read'))
            ->allow('admin');

        // setup acl in the registry for more
        Zend_Registry::set('acl', $acl);

        // check permissions
        if (!$acl->isAllowed('guest', $request->getActionName())) {
            $request->setControllerName('error');
            $request->setActionName('error');
        }
    }
}

Zend Framework: Inject JavaScript Code in a Action/View

Stoimen — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:39:49 +0000

There is a view helper that can inject a head or inline script into your code.

Simply by putting some JavaScript code into the view script wont do the job, because the .phtml file is grabbed and parsed by the Zend Framework and thus the code there wont be parsed as JavaScript and it wont be executed as well by the browser.

The Most Simple Way …

is to put some place holder into the layout .phtml file and than from the controller’s action you can assign some JS code:

// layout.phtml
layout()->scriptTags;
...

view->layout()->scriptTags = '';	
	}	
}

Solution No. 2

Although the first solution is correct it’s not the most clearest way, because you put the JavaScript code into the PHP, and this sooner or later becomes a mess.

view->layout()->scriptTags = '';
						  . '';
	}	
}

The IDE is not highlighting the code, and you’ve to deal with too many quotes, which is bad! There is a better solution however – the inline script:

// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');

Simply the Best

Yeah, the best solution is something even better than the second one. Although the solution I’ve just mentioned is fine for including JS files, when you’ve to add some JS code you’ll have to put it again into the PHP.

$msg = 'some dynamically generated message';

// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');
$scripts->appendScript('alert("' . $msg . '")');

If there’s no relation between JavaScript and PHP you can simply put all this code into a separate .js file and load it from there. This is by the way the best solution because the file is cached by the browser, if the cache is enabled. But most of the time you perhaps have to send some variables from PHP to the JavaScript code.

It would be perfect if you had some kind of a variable placeholders – exactly as you have it in the Zend Framework’s view scripts!

Another View

This is completely possible – just forget about the default view – it renders the view script and it’s bind to the /views/scripts folder. You can make another, completely new, view instead! Here’s some source:

$view = new Zend_View();
$view->setBasePath('path_to_the_js_folder');

$view->msg = 'Some dynamically generated message';

// script tags
/* @var $scripts Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript */
$scripts = $this->view->inlineScript();
$scripts->appendFile('my.js');
$scripts->appendScript($view->render('inline.js'));

Thus now in the JS file you can have some placeholders!

// inline.js

// some js code
// ...
alert('msg ?>');

Zend Examples: GET Parameters Default Value

Stoimen — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:57:20 +0000

PHP Style

As you may know in PHP you can access everything in the request uri by accessing the global $_GET array. If there is something like that in the browser’s address field: www.example.com/index.php?controller=index&action=test, you can simply get the values by that:

echo $_GET['controller']; // this will print "index"
echo $_GET['action'];     // this will print "test"

Zend Framework, Uri & Request Params

If you code with Zend Framework, you should know already, and that’s perhaps the first thing you’ve learned about Zend, that $_GET params can be accessed by calling the requrest’s getParam() method. But first of all the request uri will be different. The Zend’s convetion is to place after the domain name first the module name (which is omited when there’s only one module), than the controller’s name followed by the action and the key value pairs of all parameters. In that scheme the request uri above will look like that:

http://www.example.com/index/test

Here the keywords “controller” and “action” are omitted. This is cool – it’s more user friendly and it definitely helps the SEO.

Get the $_GET

Once the uri is setup like so – /index/test you can access it via the Zend way:

echo $this->getRequest()->getParam('controller'); // this will print "index"

The cool thing is that in the first case you don’t have any prevention of a missing value, while in the second case there is a second parameter or the getParam() method that does this job. What if the uri is www.example.com/index.php?controller=&action=test than by printing the $_GET[‘controller’] you’ll get nothing. In other hand even this:

echo $this->getRequest()->getParam('action');

won’t return “test” if the uri is http://www.example.com/index/

Note: actually here the default “index” action will be referenced!

That’s where the power of the framework comes. In the first case the solution is:

echo (empty($_GET['controller']) ? 'default': $_GET['controller']);

while in Zend there’s more elegant solution:

echo $this->getRequest()->getParam('action', 'test');

Thus when the action param is missing the “test” value is considered as default! Very useful!