Zend Framework: CRUD
Update, 2012-05-24: Fixed some typos and added the screenshot (eyecandy!).
I think it took me (or us) a couple attempts to get this right — let me introduce you to Zf_Crud, a CRUD controller for the Zend Framework.
What's CRUD?
CRUD is an acronym and stands for:
- Create
- Read
- Update
- Delete
A general purpose for CRUD are administrative interfaces — view records, create them, update them or delete them. Think of phpMyAdmin as a very general purpose CRUD interface. One you need some SQL-fu for.
In my experience, such interfaces are most likely or often the very last item on a project. Not too many people (myself included) like to build these interfaces primarily because we have build them before. They are necessary non-the-less: not everybody on a project is a developer and feels comfortable writing SQL queries into phpMyAdmin to get data out (or in).
Zf_Crud
Zf_Crud aims to provide you with an interface for any table possible — think of it as a phpMyAdmin more tailored towards your data and (thanks to Twitter Bootstrap and the Easybib_Form_Decorator) prettier!
Example
Note: We haven't setup a PEAR package yet. I'll get to it soon, but feel free to submit a PR with a package.xml.
Install
The only technical dependencies are PHP 5.3+ and the Easybib_Form_Decorator:
$ pear channel-discover easybib.github.com/pear ... $ pear install easybib/Easybib_Form_Decorator ...
The other dependency is a working Zend Framework (1) application and an idea what you're doing.
Setup
To setup Zf_Crud, clone (or export) it into your local vendor library:
Our Zend Framework projects have the following structure:
- app/modules/<module>/library/vendor
To export with git, just do the following:
$ cd app/modules/foo/library/vendor $ git clone git://github.com/lagged/Zf_Crud.git ./Zf_Crud ... $ cd Zf_Crud && rm -rf .git
Then check it into your own VCS.
If you don't have git (and cannot install it), get a download of Zf_Crud from Github.
Composer, you ask?
With the initial public release, we also added composer:
{
"require": {
"php": ">=5.3.0",
"lagged/Zf_Crud": "0.5.1"
}
}
Code
Working with Zf_Crud should be super-simple and easy!
In your module (e.g. foo), create a controller in app/modules/foo/controllers/AdminController.php.
<?php
use Lagged\Zf\Crud\Autoload as CrudAutoload;
use Lagged\Zf\Crud\Controller as CrudController;
require_once dirname(__DIR__) . '/library/vendor/Zf_Crud/library/Autoload.php';
CrudAutoload::register();
class Foo_AdminController extends CrudController
{
protected $model = 'Foo_Model_SomeTable';
protected $title = 'My Interface';
}
Next, create a plain model using Zend_Db_Table_Abstract:
<?php
class Foo_Model_SomeTable extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract
{
protected $_name = 'some_table';
}
The (naming convention in ZF1 is not PSR-0 and a little weird. In case it's not obvious: the) model should live in: app/modules/foo/models/SomeTable.php.
Last but not least: Zend_Db_Table means RDBMS. Zf_Crud expects a Zend_Registry-key called dbAdapter to work. If your's is called differently, skip to the "Convention over Configuration" section.
Anyway — once these two files created (and assuming the rest is setup correctly), you should see something like the following:
Convention over configuration
I'm a fan of convention over configuration and it's the approach we selected when we build Zf_Crud.
The idea is that it should work out of the box without setting up a huge application.ini or DIC, in case you want to tinker with it when you're up and running, here is how.
Since you're extending from the Lagged\Zf\Crud\Controller, this controller has a few configuration options. Configuration is probably too advanced since these are essentially a bunch of class-properties you can overwrite in your class or via init():
<?php
// setup here
class Foo_AdminController extends CrudController
{
protected $model = 'Foo_Model_SomeTable';
protected $dbAdapter = 'db';
}
Some of the gems are:
$where: aWHERE-clause for the data query$order: column to order by$hidden: hide these columns from display$count: number of items per page
Fin
We've been using this code for a couple months now for various items. We recently tagged an early 0.5.1 which suggests that this code is still a WIP and a moving target. The configuration bits are not too great elegant yet. So there are a lot of rough edges to be aware of.
The bottom line is that Zf_Crud has been good for us since it allows us to take the pain out of building administrative interfaces. In most cases it's setup in an hour tops and then we can move on to build something more interesting than a couple forms and views to display and edit data.
If you have anything to add — comments and pull-requests welcome!