Aura Web

The Aura Web package provides tools to build web page controllers, including an AbstractPage for action methods, a Context class for disovering the request environment, and a Response transfer object that describes the eventual HTTP response. (Note that the Response transfer object is not itself an HTTP response.)

The Aura Web package has no dependencies, and does not impose any particular routing or rendering system on the developer.

Getting Started

Instantiation

Most Aura packages allow you to instantiate an object by including a particular file. This is not the case with Aura Web. Because page controllers are so specific to the logic of your particular needs, you will have to extend the AbstractPage class yourself and add action methods for your own purposes.

First, either include the the Aura.Web/src.php file to load the package classes, or add the Aura.Web/src/ directory to your autoloader.

Next, create a page controller class of your own, extending the AbstractPage class:

<?php
namespace Vendor\Package\Web;
use Aura\Web\AbstractPage;
class Page extends AbstractPage
{
    
}

To instantiate the page controller class, you will need to pass it a Context and a Response transfer object as dependencies.

<?php
use Vendor\Package\Web\Page;
use Aura\Web\Context;
use Aura\Web\Response;
$page = new Page(new Context, new Response);

If you have a dependency injection mechanism, you can automate the the creation and injection of the dependency objects. The Aura.Di package is one such system.

The Execution Cycle

The heart of the page controller is its execution cycle. You invoke the page controller by calling exec() and passing it an array of parameters. These will determine what action method is called, what the parameters for that method will be, and what rendering format is expected. The return value is a Response transfer object describing how to build your HTTP response.

<?php
use Vendor\Package\Web\Page;
use Aura\Web\Context;
use Aura\Web\Response;

$params = [
    'action' => 'hello',
    'format' => '.html',
    'noun'   => 'world',
];

$page = new Page(new Context, new Response, $params);

$response = $page->exec();

The parameters are generally retrieved from a routing mechanism of some sort, such as the one provided by the Aura.Router package.

Internally, the exec() cycle runs ...

• A preExec() hook to let you set up the object,
• A preAction() hook to prepare for the action,
• The action() method to invoke the method determined by the 'action' param value
• A postAction() hook,
• A preRender() hook to prepare for rendering,
• The render() method to render a presentation (this is up to the developer to create),
• A postRender() hook, and
• A postExec() hook.

At the end of this, the exec() method returns a Response transfer object. Note that the Response object is not an HTTP response proper; it is a data transfer object that has information on how to build an HTTP response. You would need to inspect the Response object and use that information to build an HTTP response of your own. (The Aura.Http package provides an HTTP response object proper.)

Action Methods

At this point, calling exec() on the page controller will do nothing, because there are no corresponding action methods. To add an action method to the page controller, create it as a method named action*() with any parameters it needs:

<?php
namespace Vendor\Package\Web;
use Aura\Web\AbstractPage;
class Page extends AbstractPage
{
    protected function actionHello($noun = null)
    {
        $noun = htmlspecialchars($noun, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
        $content = "Hello, {$noun}!";
        $this->response->setContent($content);
    }
}

Now when you call $page->exec() as above, you will find that the Response transfer object has some content in it.

<?php
use Vendor\Package\Web\Page;
use Aura\Web\Context;
use Aura\Web\Response;

$params = [
    'action' => 'hello',
    'format' => '.html',
    'noun'   => 'world',
];

$page = new Page(new Context, new Response, $params);

$response = $page->exec();
echo $response->getContent(); // "Hello, world!"

The Response Transfer Object

To manipulate the response description, use the $this->response transfer object. Some of the important methods are:

• setContent(): sets the body content
• setHeader(): sets a single header value
• setCookie(): sets a single cookie
• setRedirect(): sets a Location: header for redirect, with an optional status code and message (default is '302 Found'.)
• setStatusCode() and setStatusText(): sets the HTTP status code and message

For more information, please review the Response class.

The Context Object

You can discover the web request environment using the $this->context object. Some of the important methods are:

• getQuery(): gets a $_GET value
• getPost(): gets a $_POST value
• getFiles(): gets a $_FILES value
• getInput(): gets the raw php://input value
• getJsonInput(): gets the raw php://input value and json_decode() it
• getAccept(): gets the Accept headers, ordered by weight
• isGet(), isPut(), isXhr(), etc.: Tells if the request method was GET, PUT, an Xml-HTTP-Request, etc.

For more information, please review the Context class.

An example "search" action using a "terms" query string parameter might look like this:

<?php
protected function actionSearch()
{
    $terms = $this->context->getQuery('terms');
    if ($terms) {
        // ... now search a database ...
    }
}

Given a URI with the query string '?terms=foo+bar+baz', the $terms variable would be 'foo bar baz'. If there was no 'terms' item in the query string, $terms would be null.

Data and Rendering

Usually, you will not want to manipulate the Response content directly in the action method. It is almost always the case that you will collect data inside the action method, then hand off to a rendering system to present that data.

The AbstractPage provides a $data property and a render() method for just that purpose. Here is a naive example of how to use them:

<?php
namespace Vendor\Package\Web;
use Aura\Web\AbstractPage;
class Page extends AbstractPage
{
    protected function actionHello($noun = null)
    {
        $this->data->noun = $noun;
    }
    
    protected function render()
    {
        // escape all data
        $data = [];
        foreach ((array) $this->data as $key => $val) {
            $data[$key] = htmlspecialchars($val, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
        }
        
        // switch between actions
        switch ($this->getAction()) {
        case 'hello':
            $success = true;
            $content = "Hello, {$data['noun']}!";
            break;
        default:
            $this->response->setStatusCode('404');
            $success = false;
            $content = 'Action not found.';
            break;
        }
        
        // convert to a JSON response?
        if ($this->getFormat() == '.json') {
            $this->response->setContentType('application/json');
            $content = json_encode([
                'success' => $success,
                'content' => $content,
            ]);
        }
        
        $this->response->setContent($content);
    }
}

The render() method is empty by default. This allows you to add in whatever presentation logic you want, from simply json_encode()-ing $this->data, to using a complex two-step or transform view. The Aura.View package provides a powerful view system suitable for use here.

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