<?php
class Product extends CActiveRecord
{
    /**
     * The followings are the available columns in table 'Product':
     * @var integer $id
     * @var integer $brandId
     * @var string $name
     * @var string $price
     */
 
    /**
     * Returns the static model of the specified AR class.
     * @return CActiveRecord the static model class
     */
    public static function model($className=__CLASS__)
    {
        return parent::model($className);
    }
 
    /**
     * @return string the associated database table name
     */
    public function tableName()
    {
        return 'Product';
    }
 
    /**
     * @return array validation rules for model attributes.
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return array(
            array('name','length','max'=>255),
            array('price','length','max'=>8),
            array('name, price', 'required'),
        );
    }
 
    /**
     * @return array relational rules.
     */
    public function relations()
    {
        // NOTE: you may need to adjust the relation name and the related
        // class name for the relations automatically generated below.
        return array(
            'brand' => array(self::BELONGS_TO, 'Brand', 'brandId'),
            'categories' => array(self::MANY_MANY, 'Category', 'ProductCategory(productId, categoryId)'),
        );
    }
 
    /**
     * @return array customized attribute labels (name=>label)
     */
    public function attributeLabels()
    {
        return array(
            'id'=>'Id',
            'brandId'=>'Brand',
            'name'=>'Name',
            'price'=>'Price',
        );
    }
}

Enable your weblogger: this you will find in: /yourProject/protected/config/main.php

By default your log array looks something like this: (Tip: IF you haven’t done this, and you find it hard to find you way in the file, comment everything you deem meaningful, use spaces and limit blocks of codes with comment of your choice)

        'log'=>array(
            'class'=>'CLogRouter',
            'routes'=>array(
                array(
                    'class'=>'CFileLogRoute',
                    'levels'=>'error, warning',
                ),
            ),
        ),

Let’s add in the CWebLogRoute so it looks like this.

  'log'=>array(
            'class'=>'CLogRouter',
            'routes'=>array(
                array(
                    'class'=>'CFileLogRoute',
                    'levels'=>'error, warning',
                ),
                array(
                    'class'=>'CWebLogRoute',
                    'levels'=>'trace,info, error, warning',
                ),
            ),
        ),

Visit the application and notice that at the bottom of the screen a table is shown displaying everything Yii does to make it possible for the website to be shown correctly. This is especially useful when you’re new to the Yii DB stuff.

Let’s start by getting all of our products. If you are trying this tutorial, then please create a simple new installation, config the database settings in /protected/config/main.php and create your database with the proposed columns from the model seen earlier.

You can test this in any controller, because the system already has a default SiteController in: /protected/controllers/siteController.php, this tutorial will use siteController.php with the view-file in: /protected/views/site/index.php

So we’ll first modify our SiteController::actionIndex method.

    public function actionIndex()
    {
        $this->render('index', array(
            'Products' => Product::model()->findAll(),
        ));
    }

Open the view-file related to the actionIndex() The system has an array that will be passed to our index view. This array contains ‘Products’ which will be usable as ‘$Products’ in our view: /protected/views/site/index.php

<?php $this->pageTitle=Yii::app()->name; ?>
 
<h1>
    Welcome, <?php echo Yii::app()->user->name; ?>!
</h1>
<table>
<?php foreach($Products AS $Product):?>
    <tr>
        <td><?php echo $Product->name;?></td>
        <td><?php echo $Product->price;?></td>
    </tr>
<?php endforeach;?>
</table>

The system (Yii) writes the SQL statements for us thanks to the AR and everything behind that, but we got back an array of product objects.

Now let’s use the ‘brand’ relation that is set in our Product model.

Without changing the controller, we can simply change the view and add the line to output the brand name.

<td><?php echo $Product->brand->name;?></td>

Now how did Yii do that? Look at the screen logger. You will see that it used the ‘lazy-loading’ technique to query the Brand table at that point.

Querying SQL: SELECT * FROM `Product`
 
Querying SQL: SELECT `Product`.`id` AS `t0_c0`, t1.`id` AS `t1_c0`,
t1.`name` AS `t1_c1`, t1.`website` AS `t1_c2` FROM `Product` LEFT OUTER
JOIN `Brand` t1 ON (`Product`.`brandId`=t1.`id`) WHERE (`Product`.`id`=3)
 
Querying SQL: SELECT `Product`.`id` AS `t0_c0`, t1.`id` AS `t1_c0`,
t1.`name` AS `t1_c1`, t1.`website` AS `t1_c2` FROM `Product` LEFT OUTER
JOIN `Brand` t1 ON (`Product`.`brandId`=t1.`id`) WHERE (`Product`.`id`=4)

This is not the best way to go so let’s change the actionIndex in siteController.php

    public function actionIndex()
    {
        // renders the view file 'protected/views/site/index.php'
        // using the default layout 'protected/views/layouts/main.php'
        $this->render('index', array(
            'Products' => Product::model()->with(array('brand'))->findAll(),
        ));
    }

One query is all that is needed for all the data to be collected.

Querying SQL: SELECT `Product`.`id` AS `t0_c0`, `Product`.`brandId` AS
`t0_c1`, `Product`.`name` AS `t0_c2`, `Product`.`price` AS `t0_c3`, t1.`id`
AS `t1_c0`, t1.`name` AS `t1_c1`, t1.`website` AS `t1_c2` FROM `Product` 
LEFT OUTER JOIN `Brand` t1 ON (`Product`.`brandId`=t1.`id`)

The view file does not have to change for this. This technique is called eager-loading and has advantages over lazyloading sometimes.

This tutorial is a modified tutorial from another website/blog that unfortunantly isn’t online anymore, domain is being sold by godaddy.com, so I search my archives to retrieve this on, and post him here, hence a few additions, deletes and rewrites from me.

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There are a few ways to add to a models that increase code re-usability. One way is to just add methods to the models, methods which can execute complex queries and make your controller thinner.

The first example, a query that will get all products within a price range, it will need a limit and an offset for pagination, so in the Products model, the following function can be added:

public function findAllByPrice($min=0, $max=1000000, $offset = 0, $limit = 30) {
    $Criteria = new CDbCriteria();
    $Criteria->condition = "price >= :min AND price <=:max";
    $Criteria->limit = $limit;
    $Criteria->offset = $offset;
    $Criteria->params = array ( ':min' => $min, ':max' => $max );
    return $this->with(array('brand'))->findAll($Criteria);
}

Now in any of the controlller files this method can be easily accessed and returns all of the ‘Product’ objects with a single line command:

$Products = Product::model()->findAllByPrice(100, 700, 0, 30);

Another way to do the same is to:

public function getProducts($category){
    return $this->findAll('categoryIdFk=:category', array(':category'=>$category));
}

Let’s implement the first query using two named scope methods that I’ll create.

// Price Between - Named Scope ---------------------------------//
public function scopePriceBetween($min, $max) {
    $Criteria = new CDbCriteria();
    $Criteria->condition = "$this->tableName().price BETWEEN :min AND :max";
    $Criteria->params = array(':min' => $min,   ':max' => $max);
    $this->getDbCriteria()->mergeWith($Criteria);
    return $this;
}

Now an additional named scope for the limit element

//  Limit - Named Scope --------------------------------------//
public function scopeLimit($limit = 30, $offset = 0) {
    $Criteria = new CDbCriteria();
    $Criteria->limit = $limit;
    $Criteria->offset = $offset;
    $this->getDbCriteria()->mergeWith($Criteria);
    return $this;
}

Now we can simply use our named scopes to get our data back, and then we could continue to pile on named scopes to return our data.

$Products = Product::model()->scopePriceBetween(0, 5000) ->scopeLimit(30, 1)->findAll();

The query that actually gets executed is simple and looks like this:

SELECT * FROM `Product` WHERE Product.price BETWEEN :MIN AND :MAX LIMIT 30 OFFSET 1

This tutorial is a modified tutorial from another website/blog that unfortunantly isn’t online anymore, domain is being sold by godaddy.com, so I search my archives to retrieve this on, and post him here, hence a few additions, deletes and rewrites from me.

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Limitations
It might be wise to, first, learn what you can do with it as it is not a all-in-one solutions for al your troubles and ideas. You can use a view to DISPLAY data, but unless you display all the data from the column or columns, which most of the time doesn’t make sense, you can NEVER use it to insert data IF any other columns are required to be filled out.

How to create a view in mySQL
The syntax, normally, can be used in other databases to but I’m focussing on mySQL.

<code lang="sql[lines]">CREATE VIEW [name of the view] AS [ your query];

Best is that you make a clear distinction between the original tables and the view by for instance writing "_view" after it, this will help later when reviewing the database or using the view element with the YiiFramework.

You can in fact put everything you want in the [your query] section as long as it is valid SQL. You also need to be careful when using this that whatever query you make, you don't ask the Cartesian product, this however you need to do with every single query you ever make where joints and where clauses are involved.

YiiFramework and Views
This is the fastest part, you create your model with Gii, and you do the rest of your magic to write your application.

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First you need to open the console and login with your root user, type su and fedora will already know what to do.

You need to shutdown the httpd servic deamon with the command :

/etc/init.d/httpd stop

You will have to open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, once opened you will have to locate the section on virtual hosts and you should see an example that is already commented out., I edited the files with nano in the console.

### Section 3: Virtual Hosts

Instead of telling you which lines to uncomment, I’m going to show you below, the stanzas to add to the Virtual Host section to get companyABC.com and companyDEF.com websites running:

#
# Virtual hosts
#
 
# Virtual host Default Virtual Host
<VirtualHost *>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/
ErrorLog logs/error_log
ServerAdmin root@localhost
 
 
 
ServerSignature email
TransferLog logs/access_log
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm index.shtml
 
 
SSLEngine off
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/localhost.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/localhost.key
 
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
 
SSLOptions
LogFormat "None"
TransferLog logs/access_log
ErrorLog logs/error_log
LogLevel debug
HostNameLookups off
 
 
 
 
</VirtualHost>
 
# Virtual host resume.loc
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mdw/resume
ErrorLog logs/error_log
ServerAdmin root@localhost
ServerName resume.loc
 
 
ServerSignature email
TransferLog logs/access_log
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.shtml
 
<Directory "/var/www/html/mdw/resume/">
Options all
 
AllowOverride all
 
 
 
</Directory>
 
 
SSLEngine off
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/localhost.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/localhost.key
 
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
 
SSLOptions
LogFormat "None"
TransferLog logs/access_log
ErrorLog logs/error_log
LogLevel error
HostNameLookups on
 
 
 
 
</VirtualHost>
 
# Virtual host linker
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mdw/linkerv2/
ErrorLog logs/error_log
ServerAdmin root@localhost
ServerName linker.loc
 
 
ServerSignature email
TransferLog logs/access_log
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.shtml
 
 
SSLEngine off
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/localhost.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/localhost.key
 
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
 
SSLOptions
LogFormat "None"
TransferLog logs/access_log
ErrorLog logs/error_log
LogLevel error
HostNameLookups on
 
 
 
 
</VirtualHost>
 
# Virtual host Virtual Host 1
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mdw/site
ErrorLog logs/error_log
ServerAdmin root@localhost
ServerName mdw.loc
 
 
ServerSignature email
TransferLog logs/access_log
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.shtml
 
 
SSLEngine off
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/localhost.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/localhost.key
 
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
 
SSLOptions
 
TransferLog logs/access_log
ErrorLog logs/error_log
LogLevel error
HostNameLookups on
 
 
 
 
</VirtualHost>
 
 

After you have added the host(s), save the file. At this point, you will need to add the appropriate records to your DNS server to make these domains reachable by anyone on the network. If you have no access to a DNS server (BIND9), or you just want to test the configuration, just edit your /etc/hosts file. Here is what my file looks like:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.0.1               host1.loc
127.0.0.1               host2.loc

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In all my ‘wisdom’ and persistence i made a small app with Yii which stores data in an array and serializes it into a db, and a basic CRUD, a proof of concept to see if the framework was capable of doing this and in the fastest way possible.

No problem so far, getting it is simple, but apparently you Yii doesn’t permit everything. So you need a $temp variable to store the model data in, suffice to say that it isn’t really the shortest route to take nor in my opinion the fastest bus alas I have to do with it. This little app of not more then a 60 lines of code took me four days, four damn days to figure out the error,  honestly if we have methods to ‘save space’ in your coding why not permit them?

I’m not going to bother everybody with my nagging so, I’ll stop here.

For those who want to see the topic on the yii forums.

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Brake down the configuration file in multiple files, this will give you some speed disadvantage and some will  saying that I’m raping Yii framework purpose for speed but at least to me it seems more clear

This is the protected.config/main.php

dirname(__FILE__).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'..',
'name'=>'WEBSITENAME',
'modules'=>array(
'users'=>array(
//sub modules in the module users
'modules'=>array(
'messaging',
'profile',
'dashboard',
)
),
'about',
'forums',
),
// preloading 'log' component active loading
'preload'=>array('log'),

// autoloading model and component classes lazy loading
// I make the difference between CformModel and CActiveRecord
'import'=>array(
'application.models.*',
'application.models.forms.*',
'application.models.database.*',
),

// application components
'components'=>array(
// enable cookie-based authentication
'user'=>array('allowAutoLogin'=>true),

// data relinquished to database.php
// for easy access and usability as also for the future
// installation procedure, it's less to write to a file
'db'=>include(dirname(__FILE__).'/database.php'),

// for a better overview we exculded url routes to a seperate file
'urlManager'=>include(dirname(__FILE__).'/routes.php'),

//authentication component needs data from db for CdbConnection
'authManager'=>array(
'class'=>'CDbAuthManager',
'connectionID'=>'db',
'defaultRoles'=>array('authenticated', 'guest'),
),

//security measures
'request'=>array(
'enableCsrfValidation'=>true,
'enableCookieValidation'=>true,
),
),

// application-level parameters that can be accessed
// using Yii::app()->params['paramName']
// uncomment the following if you want static params in the application
//'params'=>array(include(dirname(__FILE__).'/params.php'))
);

database.php

'CDbConnection',
'connectionString'=>'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mysql',
//'connectionString'=>'pgsql:host=localhost;port=5432;dbname=mysql',
'username' => 'root',
'password' => '',
);
?>

routes.php

'path', // path or get
'urlSuffix' => '', //.html .whateverextentionyouwant
'showScriptName' => true,
'rules'=>array(
'users/recovery/perimeterSecurity/'=>'users/recovery/perimeterSecurity',
),
);
?>

param.php

//nothing in it at the moment

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redirect()

Does a “header redirect” to the local URI specified. Just like other functions in this helper, this one is designed to redirect to a local URL within your site. You will not specify the full site URL, but rather simply the URI segments to the controller you want to direct to. The function will build the URL based on your config file values.

The optional second parameter allows you to choose between the “location” method (default) or the “refresh” method. Location is faster, but on Windows servers it can sometimes be a problem. The optional third parameter allows you to send a specific HTTP Response Code – this could be used for example to create 301 redirects for search engine purposes. The default Response Code is 302. The third parameter is only available with ‘location’ redirects, and not ‘refresh’. Examples:

if ($logged_in == FALSE)
{
redirect('/login/form/', 'refresh');
}

// with 301 redirect
redirect('/article/13', 'location', 301);

This was the excerpt from the codeigniter userguide but what they don’t really tell is the essential:

redirect(‘controller/function/param’, ‘refresh’);

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Why do it?

Your application becomes easier to update to a newer version, most of the time, when creating a newer version you will strip – change – add some variables for configurations, with a database it’s easier and you (or the admin) can change things on the fly.

How?

One or more tables like this:


Mysql table:
+------------------+
| config |
+------------------+
| id |
| name |
| value |
+------------------+


If you want you can add an selection column to get only the ones needed for that function but this is the best way when being in a development environment I think

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A) They make things complicated

B) Subject you to some nasty code stuff and rules

C) Because templating and Frameworks can be water and fire.

Codeigniter on the opposite has some advantage on it side for the templating stuff. This is really a short explanation for a common problem in other framework.

What to do if you want a nice folder structure or have different template styles, remember this is just a basic thing which happen to work in CI 1.7.


function index(){
$this->load->view('Themename/news/index);
}

Just add some slashes an it works so normally it should work if you would make an adaptation for themes too with a variable in it.

The next thing was kind of hard to find on the web so let me share it. It’s for when you develop with CI and your not working in the root directory of your server.


DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|css|js|robots\.txt|favicon\.ico)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./index.php/$1 [L,QSA]

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Railscasts – restful_authentication.

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