LAMP How To – Open Source At Work

If you have been following the zend quickstart tutorial at Zend site:

http://framework.zend.com/docs/quickstart

and couldn’t work out why it didn’t work… You need to check a few things. A few friends complained that the code aren’t working. How can you expect Zend to release something that is not working??!! Well, I was persuaded to go through the tutorial myself and it took me sometime to work things out. The guys expect you to know your stuff and I have to say the quick guide might not be as thorough.

If things aren’t working because the url parsing is not correct, ie the front controller is not working as expected, check if your mod_rewrite is correct. mod_rewrite works differently if you are using .htaccess, virtualhost, IIS…etc

Check out the URL Rewriter for different config at:

http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFDEV/Configuring+Your+URL+Rewriter

Then, make sure your directory structure is correct:

It should be something like this:

YourApp
_ application
____ config
____ controllers
____ forms
____ layouts
____ models
____ views
_data
_library
_public
_scripts

Also check your bootstrap.php. It should be something like this:

// Step 1: APPLICATION CONSTANTS - Set the constants to use in this application.
// These constants are accessible throughout the application, even in ini
// files. We optionally set APPLICATION_PATH here in case our entry point
// isn't index.php (e.g., if required from our test suite or a script).
defined('APPLICATION_PATH')
or define('APPLICATION_PATH', dirname(__FILE__));
defined('APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT')
or define('APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT', 'development');
// Step 2: FRONT CONTROLLER - Get the front controller.
// The Zend_Front_Controller class implements the Singleton pattern, which is a
// design pattern used to ensure there is only one instance of
// Zend_Front_Controller created on each request.
$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
// Step 3: CONTROLLER DIRECTORY SETUP - Point the front controller to your action
// controller directory.
$frontController->setControllerDirectory(APPLICATION_PATH . '/controllers');
// Step 4: APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT - Set the current environment.
// Set a variable in the front controller indicating the current environment --
// commonly one of development, staging, testing, production, but wholly
// dependent on your organization's and/or site's needs.
$frontController->setParam('env', APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT);
// LAYOUT SETUP - Setup the layout component
// The Zend_Layout component implements a composite (or two-step-view) pattern
// With this call we are telling the component where to find the layouts scripts
Zend_Layout::startMvc(APPLICATION_PATH . '/layouts/scripts');
// CONFIGURATION - Setup the configuration object
// The Zend_Config_Ini component will parse the ini file, and resolve all of
// the values for the given section. Here we will be using the section name
// that corresponds to the APP's Environment
$configuration = new Zend_Config_Ini(
APPLICATION_PATH . '/config/app.ini',
APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT
);
// DATABASE ADAPTER - Setup the database adapter
// Zend_Db implements a factory interface that allows developers to pass in an
// adapter name and some parameters that will create an appropriate database
// adapter object. In this instance, we will be using the values found in the
// "database" section of the configuration obj.
$dbAdapter = Zend_Db::factory($configuration->database);
// DATABASE TABLE SETUP - Setup the Database Table Adapter
// Since our application will be utilizing the Zend_Db_Table component, we need
// to give it a default adapter that all table objects will be able to utilize
// when sending queries to the db.
Zend_Db_Table_Abstract::setDefaultAdapter($dbAdapter);
// REGISTRY - setup the application registry
// An application registry allows the application to store application
// necessary objects into a safe and consistent (non global) place for future
// retrieval. This allows the application to ensure that regardless of what
// happends in the global scope, the registry will contain the objects it
// needs.
$registry = Zend_Registry::getInstance();
$registry->configuration = $configuration;
$registry->dbAdapter = $dbAdapter;
// VIEW SETUP - Initialize properties of the view object
// The Zend_View component is used for rendering views. Here, we grab a "global"
// view instance from the layout object, and specify the doctype we wish to
// use. In this case, XHTML1 Strict.
$view = Zend_Layout::getMvcInstance()->getView();
$view->doctype('XHTML1_STRICT');
// Step 5: CLEANUP - Remove items from global scope.
// This will clear all our local boostrap variables from the global scope of
// this script (and any scripts that called bootstrap). This will enforce
// object retrieval through the applications's registry.
unset($frontController, $view, $configuration, $registry);