Federico Cargnelutti

phpWatch is a general purpose service monitor that is able to send notifications of outages via e-mail or text-message (SMS). The purpose of this system is to allow administrators to easily check the status of many different services running on any number of servers and also allow developers to interface with the query and notification APIs.

Installation

The basic installation is very simple: chmod config.php to 777 and simply navigate to the install directory in your browser. Fill in the database information and the setup will create the required tables and setup the configuration file as needed. The only required task beyond the automated install is to add cron.php as a cron job (Unix/Linux) or scheduled task (Windows).

SMS Alerts

phpWatch uses pre-existing SMS gateways provided by the cell-carriers themselves. For example, to send a message to a Verizon subscriber with the phone number 123-456-7890, an e-mail can be sent to 1234567890@vtext.com and it will then be forwarded to the individual’s phone.

Links

• Demo
• Download phpWatch v1.0.8 Beta
• Documentation

Come and join Yahoo! on the 9th and 10th of May in London for 24 hours of learning, hacking, networking and fun.

It’s a two-day event on Saturday 9th of May with a morning of Tech Talks covering a wide range of topics led by some of the Web’s most respected developers. Yahoo will showcase the newest platforms and developer tools for you to play around with, and there will be plenty of experts on hand to answer questions.

Sign Up Now

Zend Framework is very flexible and one of its strengths is that it allows developers to implement their own components. The Zend_Controller component, for example, is very powerful. Of course, it’s not my intention to replace it, but to offer an alternative that decreases the number of decisions a developer needs to make when developing an application.

Meet Zf_Controller. The Zf_Controller component has the following goals:

• Abstract complexity: Try to reduce the level of details so the developer can focus on a few concepts at a time.
• Emphasize Convention over Configuration: Emphasize CoC, meaning that the user only needs to specify unconventional aspects of the application.
• Maintain backwards compatibility: Allow the developer to replace Zf_Controller with Zend_Controller in case the application grows in size or complexity.
• Improve performance: Load less classes, execute less code.
• Remove circular references: Avoid circular references.
• Remove Singleton classes: Avoid implementing the Singleton pattern.
• Research: Learn more about the framework, what it does, how it works.

Project Structure

Zend_Controller allows you to use the project structure that best suits your needs. On the other hand, Zf_Controller is more rigid, it only allows you to use the standard project structure:

project/
  app/
    config/
    controllers/
      ErrorController.php
      IndexController.php
    views/
      layouts/
      scripts/
        error/
        index/
          index.phtml
  domain/
    Model/
      Example.php
  lib/
    Zend/
    Zf/

Zf_Controller classes:

Zf/
  Controller/
    Action/
      Helper/
        Layout.php
    Action.php
    Front.php

Bootstrap File

Zend_Controller:

define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../app'));
set_include_path(APPLICATION_PATH . '/../lib'
    . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());

require_once "Zend/Loader.php";
Zend_Loader::registerAutoload();

$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
$router = $frontController->getRouter();
$routes = include_once APPLICATION_PATH . '/config/routes.php';
$router->addRoutes($routes);

$layout = Zend_Layout::startMvc();
$layout->setLayoutPath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/views/layouts');

$frontController->dispatch();

Zf_Controller (no Router):

define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../app'));
set_include_path(APPLICATION_PATH . '/../lib'
    . PATH_SEPARATOR . APPLICATION_PATH . '/../domain);

require_once "Zend/Loader.php";
Zend_Loader::registerAutoload();

$frontController = new Zf_Controller_Front();
$frontController->setLayoutPath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/views/layouts');
$frontController->dispatch();

Action Controller

The default action controller and the default action are named “index”:

class IndexController extends Zf_Controller_Action
{
  public function indexAction()
  {}
}

Error Controller

Zend_Controller:

class ErrorController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
  // Action used by Zend_Controller
  public function errorAction()
  {
    $error = $this->_getParam('error_handler');
    echo $error->exception->getMessage();
  }
}

Zf_Controller:

class ErrorController extends Zf_Controller_Action
{
  // Action used by Zf_Controller
  public function indexAction($e)
  {
    echo $e->getMessage();
  }
}

Rendering a View Script

Zf_Controller does not use the ViewRenderer helper class. To make the code more readable and testable, you need to call the render() method and return a value:

class IndexController extends Zf_Controller_Action
{
  public function indexAction()
  {
    $view = $this->initView();
    $view->message = 'Hello';

    // Renders views/scripts/index/index.phtml
    return $this->render();
  }

  public function testAction()
  {
    $view = $this->initView();
    $view->message = 'Goodbye';

    // Renders views/scripts/index/index.phtml
    return $this->render('index');
  }}

index.phtml file:

<p><?php echo $this->message ?></p>

Using a Layout

By setting the path to your layouts in the Bootstrap file, you automatically enable the default layout “layout.phtml”:

$frontController = new Zf_Controller_Front();
$frontController->setLayoutPath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/views/layouts');

To disable the layout:

class IndexController extends Zf_Controller_Action
{
    protected $_isLayoutEnabled = false;
}

To use a different layout:

class IndexController extends Zf_Controller_Action
{
    protected $_layoutScript = 'main.phtml';
}

main.phtml file:

<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<?php echo $this->headTitle() ?>
<?php echo $this->headScript() ?>
<?php echo $this->headStyle() ?>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content"><?php echo $this->layout()->content ?></div>
</body>
</html>

Source Code:
http://svn.fedecarg.com/repo/Zf/Controller/

There’s no doubt that the additional complexity of implementing the default Front Controller in ZF results in a number of benefits. The most important ones are flexibility and extensibility. The Front Controller implementation takes into consideration the future growth of your application and its design reduces the level of effort required to extend it. A good example of this is the plugin architecture.

But, what if after evaluating the requirements of your system, you determine that there’s not sufficient complexity to implement the default Front Controller? What if you don’t need all that flexibility, a URL mapper, a ViewRendered plugin or an ActionStack helper. Maybe all you need is just a couple of controllers, and that’s it. It’s clear that the standard Front Controller does provide more options and meets every possible use case requirement, but at the cost of complexity and a lot of classes.

So, what to do? Do you choose a different tool for the job, or replace the default Front Controller with your own implementation? How hard can it be? Is it really that difficult to replace the most important component of the Zend Framework and maintain backwards compatibility?

You are about to find out.

In this series of posts, I’ll try to cover a few things I’ve learned about implementing my own Front Controller in Zend Framework. Most of the ideas and code are based on my previous posts:

• Zend Framework: The Cost of Flexibility is Complexity
• Zend Framework Automatic Dependency Tracking
• Zend Framework Controller: 22% Drop in Responsiveness
• Refactoring the Front Controller of the Zend Framework
• Improving the performance of Zend_Controller
• Zend Framework Architecture

Will simplicity finally meet power?

The Scienta ZF Debug Bar is a plugin for the Zend Framework. It provides useful debug information displayed in a small bar at the bottom of every page. Time spent, memory usage and number of database queries are presented at a glance. Additionally, included files, a listing of available view variables and the complete SQL command of all queries are shown in separate panels.

Great plugin Joakim. Thanks for sharing!

ZF Debug Bar

The Center for History and New Media has released an open source version of their Web-based publishing system built on top of the Zend Framework.

Omeka is a Web-based publishing platform for scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, educators, and cultural enthusiasts. Its “five-minute setup” makes launching an online exhibition as easy as launching a blog. Omeka is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content and interpretation rather than programming. It brings Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to academic and cultural websites to foster user interaction and participation. It makes top-shelf design easy with a simple and flexible templating system. Its robust open-source developer and user communities underwrite Omeka’s stability and sustainability.

Thank you guys for open sourcing this great application!

Links

• Website
• Documentation
• Demo (demo/sandbox)
• Source Code

Groovy offers the flexibility of PHP and the power and capabilities of Java. Groovy meets all the requirements: optional static typing, familiar syntax, runs on a VM, performs as well as Java and supports lots of hot buzzwords like closures and builders. If you are a PHP and/or Ruby developer, I’m sure you are going to love Groovy.

If you are interested in learning more about Groovy and Grails and what it has to offer to your developer toolbox, keep an eye on my blog for some groovy posts :)

Last updated: 15 Feb, 2010

Part 1: Domain-Driven Design and MVC Architectures
Part 2: Domain-Driven Design: Data Access Strategies
Part 3: Domain-Driven Design: The Repository

Some of the Domain-driven design concepts explained above are applied in this sample application.

Directory Structure

app/
    config/
    controllers/
        UserController.php
    domain/
        entities/
            User.php
            UserProfile.php
        repositories/
            UserRepository.php
    views/
lib/
public/

The domain layer should be well separated from the other layers and it should have few dependencies on the framework you are using.

User Entity

The User and UserProfile objects have a one-to-one relationship and form an Aggregate. An Aggregate is as a collection of related objects that have references between each other. Within an Aggregate there’s always an Aggregate Root (parent Entity), in this case User:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    /* @var UserProfile */
    private $profile;

    public function __construct($id, $name)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function setProfile(UserProfile $profile)
    {
        $this->profile = $profile;
    }

    public function getProfile()
    {
        return $this->profile;
    }
}

class UserProfile
{
    private $id;

    public function __construct($id)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
    }
}

Users Collection

A collection is simply an object that groups multiple elements into a single unit.

class Users
{
    private $elements = array();

    public function __construct(array $users)
    {
        foreach ($users as $user) {
            if (!($user instanceof User)) {
                throw new Exception();
            }
            $this->elements[] = $user;
        }
    }

    public function toArray()
    {
        return $this->elements;
    }
}

User DAO

The UserDAO class allows data access mechanisms to change independently of the code that uses the data:

interface UserDao
{
    public function find($id);
    public function findAll();
}

class UserDatabaseDao implements UserDao
{
    public function find($id)
    {
        $dataSource = Zf_Orm_Manager::getInstance()->getDataSource()
        $db = $dataSource->getConnection('slave');
        $query = $db->select()->from('user')->where('id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }

    public function findAll()
    {
        ...
        return $db->fetchAll($query);
    }
}

interface UserProfileDao
{
    public function find($id);
    public function findByUserId($id);
}

class UserProfileDatabaseDao implements UserProfileDao
{
    public function find($id)
    {
        ...
    }

    public function findByUserId($id)
    {
        $dataSource = Zf_Orm_Manager::getInstance()->getDataSource()
        $db = $dataSource->getConnection('slave');
        $query = $db->select()->from('user_profile')->where('user_id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }
}

User Repository

A Repository is basically a collection of Aggregate Roots. Collections are used to store, retrieve and manipulate Entities and Value objects, however, object management is beyond the scope of this post. The Repository object can inject dependencies on demand, making the instantiation process inexpensive.

class UserRepository
{
    /* @var UserDatabaseDao */
    private $userDao;

    /* @var UserProfileDatabaseDao */
    private $userProfileDao;

    public function __construct()
    {
    	$this->userDao = new UserDatabaseDao();
    	$this->userProfileDao = new UserProfileDatabaseDao();
    }

    public function find($id)
    {
        $row = $this->userDao->find($id);
        $user = new User($row['id'], $row['name']);

        $row = $this->userProfileDao->findByUserId($id);
        if (isset($row['id'])) {
            $profile = new UserProfile($row['id']);
            $user->setProfile($profile);
        }

        return $user;
    }

    public function findAll()
    {
        $users = array();
        $rows = $this->userDao->findAll();
        foreach ($rows as $row) {
            $users[] = new User($row['id'], $row['name']);
        }
        return new Users($users);
    }
}

Usage:

$repository = new UserRepository();
$user = $repository->find(1);
$profile = $user->getProfile();
$users = $repository->findAll();

Source Code

http://svn.fedecarg.com/repo/Zf/Orm

Links

If you’re interested in learning more about Domain-driven design, I recommend the following articles:

Domain Driven Design and Development In Practice
Domain-Driven Design in an Evolving Architecture

There are just too many social sites out there for everyone to be able to keep up, and that’s where PHPLifestream steps in. PHPLifestream is an application that aggregates feeds from different sources and combines them into one. Developed by Johan Nilsson and built on top of the Zend Framework, PHPLifestream is a powerful Web 2.0 lifestreaming application that you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Great open source PHP application!

Demo
http://johannilsson.me/streams/list

http://johannilsson.me/graphs

Source Code
http://github.com/johannilsson/phplifestream/tree/master

Part 2: Domain-Driven Design: Data Access Strategies

The Ubiquitous Language

The ubiquitous language is the foundation of Domain-driven design. The concept is simple, developers and domain experts share a common language that both understand. This language is set in business terminology, not technical terminology. This ubiquitous language allows the technical team become part of the business.

The Repository

Repositories play an important part in DDD, they speak the language of the domain and act as mediators between the domain and data mapping layers. They provide a common language to all team members by translating technical terminology into business terminology.

In a nutshell, a Repository:

• Is not a data access layer
• Provides a higher level of data manipulation
• Is persistence ignorance
• Is a collection of aggregate roots
• Offers a mechanism to manage entities

Data Access Objects

In the absence of an ORM framework, the Data Access Object (DAO) handles the impedance mismatch that a relational database has with object-oriented techniques. In DDD, you inject Repositories, not DAO’s in domain entities. For example, imagine you have an entity named User that needs to access the database to retrieve the User details:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    public function __construct(UserDao $dao, $id)
    {
        $row = $dao->find($id);
        $this->setId($row['id']);
        $this->setName($row['name']);
    }

    public function setId($id) {}
    public function getId() {}
    public function setName($name) {}
    public function getName() {}
}

The User DAO class will look something like this:

interface UserDao
{
    public function fetchRow($id);
}

class UserDatabaseDaoImpl implements UserDao
{
    public function fetchRow($id)
    {
        ...
        $query = $db->select();
        $query->from('user');
        $query->where('id = ?', $id);
        return $db->fetchRow($query);
    }
}

$dao = new UserDatabaseDaoImpl();
$user = new User($dao, 1);
$userId = $user->getId();

But, what about separation of concerns? DAO’s are related to persistence, and persistence is infrastructure, not domain. The main problem with the example above is that we have lots of different concerns polluting the domain. According to DDD, an object should be distilled until nothing remains that does not relate to its meaning or support its role in interactions. And that’s exactly the problem the Repository pattern tries to solve.

Injecting Repositories

Lets create a UserRepository class to isolate the domain object from details of the UserDatabaseDaoImpl class:

class User
{
    private $id;
    private $name;

    public function __construct(UserRepository $repository, $id)
    {
        $row = $repository->find($id);
        $this->setId($row['id']);
        $this->setName($row['name']);
    }

    public function setId($id) {}
    public function getId() {}
    public function setName($name) {}
    public function getName() {}
}

It’s the responsibility of the UserRepository to work with all necessary DAO’s and provide all data access services to the domain model in the language which the domain understands.

interface UserRepository
{
    public function find($id);
}

class UserRepositoryImpl implements UserRepository
{
    private $databaseDao;

    public function setDatabaseDao(UserDao $dao) {}
    public function getDatabaseDao() {}

    public function find($id)
    {
        return $this->getDatabaseDao()->find($id);

    }
}

$userRepository = new UserRepositoryImpl();
$userRepository->setDatabaseDao(new UserDatabaseDaoImpl());

$user = new User($userRepository, 1);
$userId = $user->getId();
$userName = $user->getName();

The main difference between the Repository and the DAO is that the DAO is at a lower level of abstraction and doesn’t speak the ubiquitous language of the domain.

So, what’s next?

The process of creating an entity is complex, because an entity always has relationship with other objects in your domain model. When creating an entity, we have to initialize its relationships as well. Therefore, it’s a good practice to delegate this task to another object.

We’ve seen how to write a persistence-ignorant domain model. Next, I’ll explain how to automate the creation and injection of dependencies.

Part 4: Domain-Driven Design: Sample Application