Hands on Ruby on Rails has become a popular framework for developing database-based web applications using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.
Before Ruby on Rails, though, PHP was hogging the web-development limelight. Problem was, there was no Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for PHP.
With Ruby on Rails, though, PHP developers have come to realize the timesaving benefits of MVC - a fact that led to the development of various PHP frameworks that are actually based on Ruby on Rails.
Among them, the Akelos framework and PHP On Trax.
In this article we shall develop an MVC Create-Read-Update-Delete (CRUD) application using the PHP On Trax Framework. Why this particular framework? Simple: it is a direct port of the Ruby on Rails framework.
Install PHP On Trax
Install Apache HTTP Server 2.2 in C:/Apache
directory and PHP 5.2 in C:/PHP
directory, and configure the Apache server with PHP. Install a MySQL 5.0/6.0 database and enable the MySQL extension in the php.ini
configuration file. by removing the ';' from the following line:
extension=php_mysql.dll
Set the extension_dir
directive in php.ini
to the directory containing the extensions.
extension_dir = "./ext"
Set error reporting in php.ini
file to E_ERROR
.
error_reporting = E_ERROR
We also need to install the MDB2 driver for MySQL, which is available as a PHP Extension and Application Repository (PEAR) module. First, install PEAR if not already installed. Download go-pear.php and run the following command to install PEAR:
C:/PHP>PHP go-pear.php
Download the MDB2 driver for MySQL Copy the .tar file to the C:/PHP
directory. Install the MDB2 driver with the following command:
C:/PHP>pear install -o MDB2_Driver_mysql-1.4.1.tar
PHP On Trax is available as a PEAR module. Run the following commands to install PHP On Trax:
>pear channel-discover pear.phpontrax.com >pear install trax/PHPonTrax
A PHP on Trax directory gets created in the C:\PHP\PEAR
directory. Create a trax.bat
file in the C:/PHP
directory, which is in the PATH
environment variable. To the trax.bat
file add the following code:
php C:\PHP\PEAR\PHPonTrax\trax.php %1
Add the .phtml
type to the httpd.conf
file to render the .phtml
view templates.
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml
The .phtml
view templates contain a short form of PHP's open tags. Enable the short open tags in php.ini
file.
short_open_tag = On
Start your build
In this section we create a PHP on Trax application. The MVC application shall be used to create, read, update and delete catalog entries in a database table. Create an application catalog in the Apache web server root using trax.bat with the following command:
C:\Apache\htdocs >trax catalog
A trax application with an application structure similar to a Ruby on Rails application gets created. The app
directory consists of the controllers
directory for the controller PHP scripts, the models
directory for the model scripts and the views
directory for the view templates.