Swiftlet

Swiftlet is quite possibly the smallest MVC framework you'll ever use. And it's swift.

Licensed under the MIT license.

Buzzword compliance

✔ Micro-Framework
✔ Loosely coupled
✔ Unit tested
✔ Namespaced
✔ Pluggable
✔ Composer
✔ PSR-4
✔ PHP7
✔ MVC
✔ OOP

✘ ORM

Installation

Clone (or download and extract) Swiftlet into a directory on your PHP supported web server.
Having Composer installed, run composer dump-autoload.

Getting started: controllers and views

Let's create a page. Each page consists of a controller and at least one view.

The controller does most of the work; views should be limited to simple presentation logic (loops and switches).

Controller src/HelloWorld/Controllers/Foo.php

<?php
namespace HelloWorld\Controllers;

use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Controller as ControllerAbstract;

class Foo extends ControllerAbstract
{
	protected $title = 'Foo'; // Optional but usually desired 

	// Default action
	public function index(array $args = [])
	{
		// Pass a variable to the view
		$this->view->helloWorld = 'Hello world!';
	}
}

Important: class names are written in CamelCase and match their filename.

View views/foo.php

<h1><?= $this->pageTitle ?></h1>

<p>
	<?= $this->helloWorld ?>
</p>

The controller can set variables directly on the view. Values are automatically made safe for use in HTML, use $this->get('variable', false) on values that should be treated as code.

You can now view the page by navigating to http://<swiftlet>/foo in your web browser!

If you get a "404 Not Found" you will need to enable rewrites in the web server configuration. Alternatively you can navigate to http://<swiftlet>?q=foo.

Swiftlet can be invoked from the command line (e.g. to run cron jobs). Simply run php public/index.php -q foo.

Routing

Notice how you can access the page at /foo by simply creating a controller named Foo. The application maps URLs to controllers, actions and arguments.

Consider this URL: /foo/bar

In this case foo becomes the name of the controller and view and bar the name of the action. Actions are public methods on the controller class.

You can specify a different view for an action using $this->view->setName(). The view name is a filename relative to the src\<namespace>\views directory, without the .php suffix.

If the controller or action is not specified they default to index (/ will call index() on \HelloWorld\Controller\Index).

Underscores in the controller name are translated to directory separators, so /foo_bar will point to src/HelloWorld/Controllers/Foo/Bar.php.

Dashes in routes are ignored; /foo-bar/baz-qux calls bazqux() on \HelloWorld\Controllers\Foobar.

Custom routes

Automatic routing is convenient but more granular control is often desirable. In these cases custom routes can be defined.

A route maps a URL to an action (method).

URL segments can be replaced with a "wildcard" placeholder (a variable name prefixed with a colon). This value becomes available for use in the controller.

Consider this route: bar/:qux

Navigating to <controller>/bar/something matches this route. The value of $args['qux'] becomes something.

<?php
namespace HelloWorld\Controllers;

use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Controller as ControllerAbstract;

class Foo extends ControllerAbstract
{
	protected $routes = array(
		'hello/world' => 'index',
		'bar/:qux'    => 'bar'
		);

	public function index(array $args = [])
	{
		// You navigated to foo/hello/world
	}

	public function bar(array $args = [])
	{
		// You navigated to foo/bar/<something>
		// $args['qux'] contains the second URL argument
	}
}

Models

Let's throw a model into the mix and update the controller.

Model src/HelloWorld/Models/Foo.php

<?php
namespace HelloWorld\Models;

use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Model as ModelAbstract;

class Foo extends ModelAbstract
{
	public function getHelloWorld()
	{
		return 'Hello world!';
	}
}

Controller src/HelloWorld/Controllers/Foo.php

<?php
namespace HelloWorld\Controllers;

use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Controller as ControllerAbstract;
use \HelloWorld\Models\Example as ExampleModel;

class Foo extends ControllerAbstract;
{
	protected $title = 'Foo';

	public function index()
	{
		// Get an instance of the Example class 
		// See src/HelloWorld/Models/Example.php
		$example = new ExampleModel;

		$this->view->helloWorld = $example->getHelloWorld();
	}
}

A model typically represents data. This can be an entry in a database or an object such as a user.

<?php
use \HelloWorld\Models\User as UserModel;

$user = new UserModel;

$user->setEmail('example@example.com');

$user->save();

Loading and saving data should almost always happen in a model. You can create as many models as you like; they aren't tied to controllers or views.

Events and listeners

Listeners listen for events. When an event is triggered all relevant listeners are called and can be used to extend functionality.

Swiftlet has a few core events and additiontal ones can be triggered pretty much anywhere using $this->app->trigger($event).

Listener src/HelloWorld/Listeners/Foo.php

<?php
namespace HelloWorld\Listeners;

use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Controller as ControllerAbstract;
use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\Listener as ListenerAbstract;
use \Swiftlet\Abstracts\View as ViewAbstract;

class Foo extends ListernerAbstract
{
	public function actionAfter(ControllerAbstract $controller, ViewAbstract $view)
	{
		// Overwrite our previously set "helloWorld" variable
		$view->helloWorld = 'Hi world!';
	}
}

This listener listens for the core actionAfter event and changes the view variable helloWorld from our previous example to Hi world!.

Listeners don't need to be installed or activated, all files in the src/HelloWorld/Listeners/ directory are automatically included and their classes instantiated. Listeners are called in alphabetical order.

The core events are:

actionBefore
Called before each action
actionAfter Called after each action

Libraries

Reusable components such as code to send an email or generate a thumbnail image should go in a separate library class.

<?php
use \HelloWorld\Libraries\Email as EmailLibrary;

$email = new EmailLibrary;

$email->send($to, $subject, $message);

Configuration

No configuration is needed to run Swiftlet. If you're writing a model that does require configuration, e.g. credentials to establish a database connection, you may use the application's setConfig and getConfig methods:

<?php
$this->app->setConfig('variable', 'value');

$value = $this->app->getConfig('variable');

Values can be set in config/main.php or a custom file.

Public methods

Application Swiftlet\App

App dispatchController()
Determine which controller to use and run it
App serve()
Serve the page
mixed getConfig(string $variable)
Get a configuration value
App setConfig(string $variable, mixed $value)
Set a configuration value
App registerHook(string $hookName, array $params)
Register a hook

View Swiftlet\View

mixed get(string $variable [, bool $htmlEncode = true ])
Get a view variable, encoded for safe use in HTML by default
View set(string $variable [, mixed $value ])
Set a view variable
mixed get(string $variable [, bool $htmlEncode ])
Get a view variable, pass false as the second parameter to prevent values from being HTML encoded.
string getRootPath()
Absolute client-side path to the website root
mixed htmlEncode(mixed $value)
Recursively make a value safe for HTML
mixed htmlDecode(mixed $value)
Recursively decode a previously encoded value to be rendered as HTML
View render(string $path)
Render the view

AliasIO / Swiftlet