Implementing MVC in PHP: The Model

by Joe Stump
03/02/2006

This article series (starting with Understanding MVC in PHP and continued in Implementing MVC in PHP: The Controller and Implementing MVC in PHP: The View) demonstrates how to build an MVC web framework using PHP 5. This article explains the Model part of Model-View-Controller design.

The Model is where the majority of the application's logic sits. It is where you run queries against the database and perform calculations on input. A good example of what a Model would look like is a simple login script. The login script gets user input from a form, validates it against the database, and then logs in the user.

The first application using the newly created framework will be the users module. I will be creating three Models:

• login.php validates input from a form against the database
• logout.php logs a user out and destroys the associated session
• whoami.php displays simple user information, similar to the Unix program of the same name

Because I am introducing the idea of sessions and users into the framework, I will need to create a few more foundation classes as well as a table in a database. Before I go over the code of login.php, I'd like to walk through these classes.

FR_Session

FR_Session is a wrapper for the built-in PHP sessions. The code isn't very involved and provides only basic support for starting, destroying, and writing sessions.

<?php

  /**
  * FR_Session
  *
  * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
  * @copyright Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
  * @license http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
  * @package Framework
  * @filesource
  */

  /**
  * FR_Session
  *
  * Our base session class as a singleton. Handles creating the session, 
  * writing to the session variable (via overloading) and destroying the
  * session.
  *
  * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
  * @package Framework
  */
  class FR_Session 
  {
      /**
      * $instance
      *
      * Instance variable used for singleton pattern. Stores a single instance
      * of FR_Session.
      *
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      * @var mixed $instance
      */
      private static $instance;

      /**
      * $sessionID
      *
      * The session ID assigned by PHP (usually a 32 character alpha-numeric
      * string).
      *
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      * @var string $sessionID
      */
      public static $sessionID;

      // {{{ __construct()
      /**
      * __construct
      *
      * Starts the session and sets the sessionID for the class.
      *
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      */
      private function __construct()
      {
          session_start();
          self::$sessionID = session_id();
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ singleton()
      /**
      * singleton
      * 
      * Implementation of the singleton pattern. Returns a sincle instance
      * of the session class.
      * 
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      * @return mixed Instance of session
      */
      public static function singleton()
      {
          if (!isset(self::$instance)) {
              $className = __CLASS__;
              self::$instance = new $className;
          }

          return self::$instance;
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ destroy()
      public function destroy()
      {
          foreach ($_SESSION as $var => $val) {
              $_SESSION[$var] = null;
          }

          session_destroy();
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ __clone()
      /**
      * __clone
      *
      * Disable PHP5's cloning method for session so people can't make copies
      * of the session instance.
      * 
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      */
      public function __clone()
      {
          trigger_error('Clone is not allowed for '.__CLASS__,E_USER_ERROR);
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ __get($var)
      /**
      * __get($var)
      *
      * Returns the requested session variable.
      *
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      * @return mixed
      * @see FR_Session::__get()
      */
      public function __get($var)
      {
          return $_SESSION[$var];
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ __set($var,$val)
      /**
      * __set 
      * 
      * Using PHP5's overloading for setting and getting variables we can
      * use $session->var = $val and have it stored in the $_SESSION 
      * variable. To set an email address, for instance you would do the
      * following:
      *
      * <code>
      * $session->email = 'user@example.com';
      * </code>
      *
      * This doesn't actually store 'user@example.com' into $session->email,
      * rather it is stored in $_SESSION['email'].
      * 
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net>
      * @param string $var
      * @param mixed $val
      * @see FR_Session::__get()
      * @link http://us3.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.overloading.php
      */
      public function __set($var,$val)
      {
          return ($_SESSION[$var] = $val);
      }
      // }}}
      // {{{ __destruct()
      /**
      * __destruct()
      *
      * Writes the current session.
      *
      * @author Joe Stump <joe@joestump.net> 
      */
      public function __destruct()
      {
          session_write_close();
      }
      // }}}
  }

?>

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