ZendFramework Send variables from Controller to Vi

Question

I have been working in Zend Framework for a while and I am currently refactoring some parts of my code. One of the big thing I would like to eliminate is my abstract controller class which initiate a lot of variables which must be present in all my controller such as $success, $warning and $error. This part can be done in controller pluggins but what would be the best way to send these variables to the related view. Currently I am using a custom method in my abstract controller class which i call from within all my controllers.

protected function sendViewData(){
    $this->view->success  = $this->success;
    $this->view->warning  = $this->warning;
    $this->view->error    = $this->error;
}

which is then called in all the actions of all of my controllers throught

parent::sendViewData();

I was looking to automate this process through a plugin controller or anything better suited for this

Answer 1

You could set a postDisplatch method in your abstract controller to initialize the view data (See section "Pre- and Post-Dispatch Hooks").

That way, in each actions, you could initialize your $this->success, $this->warnning or $this->error variables, and it would be pass to the view after the action is executed.

Answer 2

The Best pactice is, define a base controller and let other controllers to extend this, instead of directly calling the Zend_Controller_Action method

// Your base controller file ApplicationController.php
class ApplicationController extends Zend_Controller_Action {
       // method & variable here are available in all controllers
        public function preDispatch() {
            $this->view->success  = $this->success;
            $this->view->warning  = $this->warning;
            $this->view->error    = $this->error;
        }
}

Your other normal controllers would be like this

// IndexController.php
class IndexController extends ApplicationController {

}

Now these (success, warning & error) variable are available in all views/layout files, In ApplicationController.php you can also hold shared functionality of other controllers.