3.4. Code Generation

Now that everything is set up properly, and you understand the concept of how PHOCOA handles web pages, we will actually create a page to edit our blog.

We will start out by creating a new module, "blog". This module will allow us to search, browse, edit, create, and delete blog posts.

First, cd into the modules subdirectory.

$ cd blog/blog/modules

PHOCOA has a code-generation feature that will quickly build a module providing basic CRUD functionality (Create, Read, Update, Delete) for the selected table. This is done using the phocoa command-line utility:

$ phocoa createSkeletonFromPropel
phing -f /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa/phing/build.xml -Dusing.phocoa.make=true -Dphocoa.pwd=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/modules -Dphocoa.dir=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa -Dphocoa.project.name=blog -Dphocoa.project.dir=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog createSkeletonFromPropel
Buildfile: /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa/phing/build.xml

phocoa > prepareGeneral:
     [echo] PHOCOA framework base dir at: /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa

phocoa > prepareProject:
     [echo] 1
      [php] Evaluating PHP expression: $_ENV['_']
     [echo] PHOCOA project dir at: /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog
[realpathexpandhome] Resolved /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/.. to /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog
     [echo] PHOCOA project container dir at: /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog
 [property] Loading /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/conf/build.properties
 [property] Unable to find property file: /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/conf/build.properties... skipped

phocoa > createSkeletonFromPropel:
Database Name: [blog] 
Table Name: blog
Column name of single column that best describes the table: title
Module Name: [blog] 
      [php] Evaluating PHP expression: require('/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/conf/webapp.conf')
     [exec] Executing command: /opt/local/bin/php /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa/framework/createModule.php blog 2>&1
     [exec] Writing blog/blog.php
     [exec] Done building module blog!
     [exec] Executing command: /opt/local/bin/php /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa/framework/createSkeletonFromPropel.php --phocoaConfFile=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/conf/webapp.conf --propelOutputDir=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/classes --propelConfFile=/Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/conf/blog-conf.php --databaseName=blog --tableName=blog --columnName=title --pageType=search,edit,detail 2>&1
     [exec] Setting up page: search
     [exec] Adding shared instance: Blog
     [exec] Adding shared instance: 'paginator'
     [exec] Saving updated shared.instances
     [exec] Adding config for shared instance: Blog
     [exec] Adding config for shared instance 'paginator'
     [exec] Saving updated shared.config
     [exec] Saving updated search.instances
     [exec] Saving updated search.config
     [exec] Creating search.tpl file.
     [exec] Setting up page: edit
     [exec] Saving updated shared.instances
     [exec] Saving updated shared.config
     [exec] Adding instance: blogId
     [exec] Adding config for instance: blogId
     [exec] Adding instance: postDts
     [exec] Adding config for instance: postDts
     [exec] Adding instance: title
     [exec] Adding config for instance: title
     [exec] Adding instance: post
     [exec] Adding config for instance: post
     [exec] Saving updated edit.instances
     [exec] Saving updated edit.config
     [exec] Creating edit.tpl file.
     [exec] Saving updated confirmDelete.instances
     [exec] Saving updated confirmDelete.config
     [exec] Creating confirmDelete.tpl file.
     [exec] Saving updated deleteSuccess.instances
     [exec] Saving updated deleteSuccess.config
     [exec] Creating deleteSuccess.tpl file.
     [exec] Setting up page: detail
     [exec] Saving updated shared.instances
     [exec] Saving updated shared.config
     [exec] Adding instance: blogId
     [exec] Adding config for instance: blogId
     [exec] Adding instance: postDts
     [exec] Adding config for instance: postDts
     [exec] Adding instance: title
     [exec] Adding config for instance: title
     [exec] Adding instance: post
     [exec] Adding config for instance: post
     [exec] Saving updated detail.instances
     [exec] Saving updated detail.config
     [exec] Creating detail.tpl file.
     [exec] Suggested module code in suggested_code.php
     [exec] Executing command: /opt/local/bin/php /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/phocoa/phocoa/framework/util/convertModuleToYAML.php blog 2>&1
     [exec] Converting shared setup to YAML for module at: 'blog'
     [exec] Checking .
     [exec] Checking ..
     [exec] Checking blog.php
     [exec] Checking confirmDelete.config
     [exec] Checking confirmDelete.instances
     [exec] Checking confirmDelete.tpl
     [exec] Converting page: confirmDelete.tpl to YAML
     [exec] Checking deleteSuccess.config
     [exec] Checking deleteSuccess.instances
     [exec] Checking deleteSuccess.tpl
     [exec] Converting page: deleteSuccess.tpl to YAML
     [exec] Checking detail.config
     [exec] Checking detail.instances
     [exec] Checking detail.tpl
     [exec] Converting page: detail.tpl to YAML
     [exec] Checking edit.config
     [exec] Checking edit.instances
     [exec] Checking edit.tpl
     [exec] Converting page: edit.tpl to YAML
     [exec] Checking search.config
     [exec] Checking search.instances
     [exec] Checking search.tpl
     [exec] Converting page: search.tpl to YAML
     [exec] Checking shared.config
     [exec] Checking shared.instances
     [exec] Checking shared.yaml
     [exec] Checking suggested_code.php
   [delete] Deleting 12 files from /Users/alanpinstein/dev/sandbox/blog/blog/modules/blog
     [exec] Executing command: mv suggested_code.php blog.php 2>&1

BUILD FINISHED

Total time: 4.4874 seconds

The phocoa createSkeletonFromPropel command automatically creates a new module and code for all of these functions.

You should not run the code generator more than once for the same module. This may be supported in a future version; right now the effect is untested.

You can now visit your blog editing module at http://servername/blog.

You will notice that this is a fully-functional blog CRUD module. It is also easily maintainable and extensible.

The next few sections will provide a tour of PHOCOA's core technologies and what they do for you. We'll also make a bunch of modifications along the way to improve the generated code.