Defining Actions

As mentioned in the previous chapter, you typically won't need to define the run() method yourself. The default implementation will use the next value in the requested path.

It will look for a method in the driver called someAction().

For example, if the request URL is /__/weather/get/Adelaide, the first URL part after the driver name is get. This would result in a function called getAction() being called.

The remaining path is passed to this method (that is Adelaide).

If the request URL is simply /__/weather, the default action that is request is indexAction().

If a given method isn't found then an exception is thrown from run(), resulting in a 404 file not found response.

To continue with the weather example, the following listing demonstrates how to define an action. Let's assume that the request URL for this would /__/weather/get and that it expects a posted value called city

<?php
    class Driver_backend_requests_weather_controller extends Module_Backend_Driver_Abstract
    {
        public function getDependentModules()
        {
            return array('weather');
        }
        
        public function indexAction($path)
        {
            $request = $this->getPost();
            $city    = $request->getPost('city');
            
            // now make use of $city
        }
    }
?>

You can have as many actions as you like, each of which can accept different values and return any type of data. We'll look at how to properly respond to a request shortly.