Here is the 2nd part of 3 part series of Kohana tutorial. First part of this tutorial can be found here as Kohana Tutorial: For the beginners. Same as before it is going to be 10+/- steps.
- Template Controller in Kohana
- Kohana ORM (relation & validation)
Why Template Controller?
Its tedious and repetitive task to create and manage all the view files with header, footer, menu… etc all the time. So it could be better, if we had a common template to handle this kind of stuffs. Kohana have Template Controller to rescue you.
Lets create a template
We want that, our website will have common pattern with header, menu, css etc. We need to create a simple template file like as below.
< !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/>
<title>Kohana Blog</title>
<!-- this is how, you you can add a css file -->
<?php echo HTML::style("public/css/template.css"); ?>
<!-- this is how, you you can add a javascript file -->
<?php echo HTML::script("public/js/jquery-1.6.4.js"); ?>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<!-- Header for the site -->
<div id="header"><h1>Kohana Blog</h1></div>
<!-- Menu for the site -->
<div id="navlist">
<ul>
<li><?php echo HTML::anchor("", "Home"); ?></li>
<li><?php echo HTML::anchor("article", "Articles"); ?></li>
<li><?php echo HTML::anchor("article/edit", "New Article"); ?></li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- here we load all content -->
<div id="content">
<?php echo $content; ?>
</div>
<!-- no footer added -->
</div>
</body>
</html>
Working with template controller
Now we need to say our controller that, from now on you are going to handle the template yourself. To do this we need to change our article controller. We can do it in following way.
- Extend Controller_Article from Controller_Template instead of Controller
- Set the template for your controller as $template = “template”, since our template file is template.php in view folder.
- For all actions populate the $template as highlighted below at line 12. Do it for all other methods where required.
// extends the Controller_Template
class Controller_Article extends Controller_Template {
public $template = 'template';
...
public function action_index() {
$articles = ORM::factory('article')->find_all(); // loads all article object from table
$view = new View('article/index'); // load 'article/index.php' view file
$view->set("articles", $articles); // set "articles" object to view
$this->template->set('content', $view); // renders a view as a response
}
...
}
It should be fun and easy to do this. Now hit the url: http://localhost/kohana-blog/index.php/article and see the magic. We can see a nice look of our Kohana Blog.
Working with ORM
Already you got some idea on how ORM works if you have practiced Part 1. Now its time to do something few more with ORM. Lets play with ORM relation & validation in Kohana.
Create comment model
How about adding comments to all these articles. Use the following script to create a comments table.
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `comments` ( `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `article_id` int(10) NOT NULL, `comment` varchar(45) NOT NULL, `time` datetime NOT NULL, `name` varchar(45) NOT NULL, `email` varchar(45) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), KEY `fk_comments_article` (`article_id`) );
- And below we see the Comment Model.
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
class Model_Comment extends ORM {
}
Now add relation to models
An article can have multiple comment. That means one-to-many relation. This is how we can do it using Kohana ORM.
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
class Model_Article extends ORM {
// contains many relations
protected $_has_many = array(
// an article has many comments
'comments' => array(
'model' => 'comment',
'foreign_key' => 'article_id',
),
);
}
Now something like $article->comments will allow us to get all comments for an article
And a comment can be related to only one article. So it is many-to-one relation. Below shows, how we can do it using Kohana ORM.
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
class Model_Comment extends ORM {
// contains many to one relation mainly
protected $_belongs_to = array (
// a comment is related to only one article
'article' => array (
'model' => 'article',
'foreign_key' => 'article_id'
)
);
}
Now something like $comment->article will allow us to get article related to a comment
We wont be able to see any big difference on how ORM is working here, but later part of the discussion should give some hints.
Some improvement
Before going further, lets show a single article first. It should be simple as follows.
- Create an action to load the article
class Controller_Article extends Controller_Template {
...
public function action_view() {
$article_id = $this->request->param('id');
$article = ORM::factory('article', $article_id);
$view = new View('article/single');
$view->set("article", $article);
$this->template->set('content', $view);
}
...
}
- Create a view file to show the article
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.'); ?>
<div>
<h2><?php echo $article->title; ?></h2>
<pre><?php echo $article->content; ?></pre>
<?php echo HTML::anchor("article/edit/".$article->id, "Edit"); ?>
<?php echo HTML::anchor("article/delete/".$article->id, "Delete"); ?>
</div>
Now it is possible to view an article in a single page. We can try opening a url like: http://localhost/kohana-blog/index.php/article/view/1
Add comments to an article
Now we will add comments to an article. Create an edit form & a Controller_Comment to save the comment for a certain article. These are the changes we need to do.
- Create the comment edit form
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.'); ?>
<h3>Add your comment</h3>
<?php echo Form::open('comment/post/'); ?>
<?php echo Form::label("name", "Name"); ?>
<br />
<?php echo Form::input("name", $comment->name); ?>
<br />
<br />
<?php echo Form::label("email", "Email"); ?>
<br />
<?php echo Form::input("email", $comment->email); ?>
<br />
<br />
<?php echo Form::label("comment", "Comment"); ?>
<br />
<?php echo Form::textarea("comment", $comment->comment); ?>
<br />
<br />
<?php echo Form::hidden("article_id", $article->pk()); ?>
<?php echo Form::submit("submit", "Submit"); ?>
<?php echo Form::close(); ?>
- Load the form from article view page
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.'); ?>
<div>
<h2><?php echo $article->title; ?></h2>
<pre><?php echo $article->content; ?></pre>
<?php echo HTML::anchor("article/edit/".$article->id, "Edit"); ?>
<?php echo HTML::anchor("article/delete/".$article->id, "Delete"); ?>
</div>
<!-- this practice should be preferable, instead of cluttering a single article page with everything -->
<?php echo View::factory('comment/edit', array('comment'=>new Model_Comment(),'article'=>$article )); ?>
- Create the action to save the comment in Comment Controller
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
class Controller_Comment extends Controller {
public function action_post() {
$comment = new Model_Comment();
$comment->values($this->request->post());
$comment->save();
$this->redirect("index.php/article/view/".$comment->article_id);
}
}
Now try making some comments to one of the article. We have not shown the comments yet, so you should check them in your database
Show article comments
At first, we create a view file to show a single comment.
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.'); ?>
<div class="comment">
<span><?php echo $comment->name; ?></span>
<pre><?php echo $comment->comment; ?></pre>
</div>
Article’s view page can show all these comments as shown below. $article->comments should be interesting. It refers to comments related to an article.
...
<div id="comments" style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 0px">
<?php foreach ($article->comments->find_all() as $comment) : ?>
<!-- showing a single comment -->
<?php echo View::factory('comment/single', array('comment'=>$comment)); ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div>
<!-- this practice should be preferable, instead of cluttering a single article page with everything -->
<?php echo View::factory('comment/edit', array('comment'=>new Model_Comment(),'article'=>$article )); ?>
Here $article->comments should be easily understood. I am not gonna explain it
So far, so good. Now we hit the url: http://localhost/blog/index.php/article/view/1 and see all those comments.
Working with ORM validation
How about trying with validation in Kohana ORM. It will be nice if we could validate model data each time before saving to database. Lets see, how we can do it with Kohana ORM.
But don’t be confused, I am just focusing on validating a model object. Using Kohana Validation it is possible to validate any other things also.
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.');
class Model_Article extends ORM {
// contains many relations
protected $_has_many = array(
// an article has many comments
'comments' => array(
'model' => 'comment',
'foreign_key' => 'article_id',
),
);
/**
* Rule definitions for validation
*
* @return array
*/
public function rules() {
return array (
'title' => array (
array('not_empty'),
),
'content' => array ( // property name to validate
array('not_empty'), // validation type
array(
'min_length', // validation type
array(':value', 10) // validation parameters
),
),
);
}
}
Now try creating some article with invalid data, and you will see ORM_Validation_Exception. We need to show these error messages. So we need to catch this exception in while saving the article and show these error messages in article edit form. Here we go…
class Controller_Article extends Controller_Template {
...
// save the article
public function action_post() {
$article_id = $this->request->param('id');
$article = new Model_Article($article_id);
$article->values($this->request->post()); // populate $article object from $_POST array
$errors = array();
try {
$article->save(); // saves article to database
$this->redirect(self::INDEX_PAGE);
} catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $ex) {
$errors = $ex->errors('validation');
}
$view = new View('article/edit');
$view->set("article", $article);
$view->set('errors', $errors);
$this->template->set('content', $view);
}
}
- Update the form to show error message
<?php defined('SYSPATH') or die('No direct script access.'); ?>
<h1><?php echo ($article->id? "Edit" : "New"); ?> article</h1>
<?php $errors = isset($errors) ? $errors : array(); ?>
<?php echo Form::open('article/post/'.$article->id); ?>
<?php echo Form::label("title", "Title"); ?>
<br />
<?php echo Form::input("title", $article->title); ?>
<span class="error"><?php echo Arr::get($errors, 'title');?></span>
<br />
<br />
<?php echo Form::label("content", "Content"); ?>
<br />
<?php echo Form::textarea("content", $article->content); ?>
<span class="error"><?php echo Arr::get($errors, 'content');?></span>
<br />
<br />
<?php echo Form::submit("submit", "Submit"); ?>
<?php echo Form::close(); ?>
Now try creating an article with invalid data here: http://localhost/kohana-blog/index.php/article/edit. Check if the error messages are shown correctly 
Bonus! Show label in validation
It should be all. But wait, still one more hints. It should be nice if we could see “title” instead of “title” or “Content” instead of “content” in error message. We can do it by following way. Create a function label which will return label for all the fields of a model.
class Model_Article extends ORM {
...
public function labels() {
return array(
'title' => 'Title',
'content' => 'Content',
);
}
}
Now we will see nice error message with their label with it.
- Template Controller on Kohana
- Kohana ORM: Working with relation
- Kohana ORM: Working with validation
- Organize view files, if you have noticed how I have organized view files
Downloads: https://bitbucket.org/kowsercse/kohana-blog
Part 1: Kohana Tutorial: For the beginners
More on Kohana: http://kerkness.ca/kowiki/doku.php
Hi there
I’ve just started learning kohana 3 and this is by far the best and most up to date tutorial out there.
I’ve also found a book from Packt Publishing by Jason D. Straughan, Kohana 3.0 Beginner’s Guide. Even although the book is only 4 months old the code is outdated, which is very discourage for beginners like me.
Thanks a lot for sharing your ideas. Hope to see more from you.
Greetings from Spain
Hi,
Great tutorial !!!
Hope to see more.
Carry on.
lllllllllllllll
I loved your post. Learned so many things.
Thanks you very much.
Glad, that you liked it so much.
Hi thanks for the great tutorial I have one issue with the first part .
I get error message “kohana_Exception [0]: the content property does not exist in the Model_Article class”.
Can you ple
ase help me figure out what’s wrong? Thank you so much.
Hi James,
I got this error and it’s our fault because we don’t put the good thing in the good file.
Here is the solution :
// application/classes/Model/Article.php
class Model_Article extends ORM {
// contains many relations
protected $_has_many = array(
// an article has many comments
‘comments’ => array(
‘model’ => ‘comment’,
‘foreign_key’ => ‘article_id’,
),
);
}
and the second model comment
// application/classes/Model/Comment.php
class Model_Comment extends ORM {
// contains many to one relation mainly
protected $_belongs_to = array (
// a comment is related to only one article
‘article’ => array (
‘model’ => ‘article’,
‘foreign_key’ => ‘article_id’
)
);
}
It’s two different code which not contains on the same file.
Thanks a lot.
Really, a brilliant series for kohana newbies.
Hope, on next part you will focus on authentication.
When is part 3 due?
Still waiting for part 3… I can use it.
Great portion of knowledge – all I know about KOHANA, is thanks you
I hope you will publish 3rd part of your series.
Greetings from Poland
Very useful article!
wrong filename: kohana-blog/application/views/article/edit.php this is comment/edit.php
Thanks for pointing the issue. And glad to know it was helpful for you.
how to set id,class in input format in kohana
What about database injection xxs attack etc.
Does ORM really clean it up, so we don’t need to do that?
like if we using database we will say Database::instance()->escape($string)
is it by ORM different?
Hi,
Just writing to encourage you to do some more tutorials. I´m also new to kohana and find tutorials like the ones you have written which are task-based much more valuable than formal definitions and abstract explainations.
I hope you are planning to write many more soon,
yours,
Rob
Hi,
I´m having a problem connecting to the database. I dapated database.sql for my username and password, but when I go to http://MyDomain/kohana/article/ I just get this…
“Database_Exception [ 2 ]: mysql_connect(): Access denied for user ‘www-data’@’localhost’ (using password: NO)”
can you tell me what´s going wrong?
thanks,
Rob
hi rob,
check your username and database name in config/database.php the error is showing the script can’t connect to the database with that login information
this tutorial is very helpful and hope you can continue writing the series with full kohana tutorial.
Great tutorial, thanks!! However, I do have one question, why not just re-use the edit action in action_post to display the error. Seems more like code repetition to me. Could you not simply pass the errors to that function? Thanks.
I should say tttttthankssssss so much for the tutorials you have really blessed my life. You are lifted.Greetings from Nigeria
Great article.
FYI you have an error in the factory portion of the comments. You can’t set the variables through the factory. I don’t know why, but according to the user guide you need to simply chain set and use that.
The variable simply does not end up being defined.
You should definitely do part 3. Well written :).
This is a very nice ORM tutorial, Thanks a lot, Please continue with more tutorials..
I have some doubts : If we are adding a same article title, it is updating to table. I want to check whether the article is already existing in table. I have added as in Model class:-
public function rules() {
return array (
‘title’ => array (
array(‘not_empty’),
array(‘min_length’, array(‘:value’, 4)),
array(‘max_length’, array(‘:value’, 48)),
array(array($this, ‘title_notavailable’)),
),
public function title_notavailable($title)
{
return !(bool) DB::select(‘title’)
->from($this->_table_name)
->where(‘title’, ‘=’, $title)
->execute();
}
It is not validating properly!..
Please suggest a good solution
I’m having trouble getting the templates working, would appreciate some help.
it all works fine with (from the first part of your tutorial:
class Controller_Article extends Controller {
const INDEX_PAGE = “article”; // just give the name of Controller..
public $template = ‘template’; // initiate the template variable
public function action_index() {
$articles = ORM::factory(‘article’)->find_all(); // loads all article object from table
$view = new View(‘article/index’);
$view->set(“articles”, $articles); // set “articles” object to view
$this->response->body($view); // render the view as response
}
but when I make the changes:
class Controller_Article extends Controller_Template { // make sure extends correct class
const INDEX_PAGE = “article”; // just give the name of Controller..
public $template = ‘template’; // initiate the template variable
public function action_index() {
$articles = ORM::factory(‘article’)->find_all(); // loads all article object from table
$view = new View(‘article/index’);
$view->set(“articles”, $articles); // set “articles” object to view
$this->template->set(‘content’, $view); // renders a view as a response
}
I get the following error (in fact I can remove all the code inside the “class Controller_Article extends Controller” and I get the exact same error):
View_Exception [ 0 ]: The requested view template could not be found
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/View.php [ 257 ]
252 */
253 public function set_filename($file)
254 {
255 if (($path = Kohana::find_file(‘views’, $file)) === FALSE)
256 {
257 throw new View_Exception(‘The requested view :file could not be found’, array(
258 ‘:file’ => $file,
259 ));
260 }
261
262 // Store the file path locally
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/View.php [ 137 ] » Kohana_View->set_filename(arguments)
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/View.php [ 30 ] » Kohana_View->__construct(arguments)
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/Controller/Template.php [ 33 ] » Kohana_View::factory(arguments)
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/Controller.php [ 69 ] » Kohana_Controller_Template->before()
{PHP internal call} » Kohana_Controller->execute()
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/Request/Client/Internal.php [ 97 ] » ReflectionMethod->invoke(arguments)
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/Request/Client.php [ 114 ] » Kohana_Request_Client_Internal->execute_request(arguments)
SYSPATH/classes/Kohana/Request.php [ 990 ] » Kohana_Request_Client->execute(arguments)
DOCROOT/index.php [ 118 ] » Kohana_Request->execute()
my application directory looks like this:
bootstrap.php
cache/
classes/
Controller/
article.php
Welcome.php
Model/
article.php
config
i18n
logs
messages
views/
article/
edit.php
index.php
template.php
any help would be so appreciated as I’m still very new to kohana and MVC and even OOP in general.
Sorry please ignore my question, posted in the wrong place and also I fixed it, template file was one level too far down… duh
As an old man learning something new, I find your tutorial very interesting. My only problem is that in testing, all was okay until the program was complete and I receive the following error:
]
28
29 **** error ****
30
If you could kindly point me in the correct direction, I would greatly appreciate it.
referenced problem solved.
Even i tried to fix all code errors but still didn’t work my form page, when click “New article” Link its shown this error,
ErrorException [ Notice ]: Undefined variable: content
why this error..?? i think any small code errors,
thanks
add this :
“$this->template->set(‘content’, $view);”
at the end of method action_new()
hi,
good job. tk u. there are so many frameworks available. i hope kohana is really optimum.
This is by far the best HOWTO in Kohana I’ve seen. Thank you for giving a piece of your brain.
Greetings from the Davao City, Philippines
Ok, really good tutorial once again. A few problems I came across:
‘redirect(self::INDEX_PAGE);’ does not work in 3.3, change to ‘HTTP::redirect(self::INDEX_PAGE);’ (remove single quotes of course).
Also, the second-to-last step “Update the form to show error message” left the problem where if the new article page is loaded fresh the errors aren’t defined:
‘ErrorException [ Notice ]: Undefined variable: errors’ etc
so instead of
”
”
I added:
”
”
hope that helps anyone getting the same errors. It’s kinda obvious but took my a while to pinpoint the problem.
ok your blog didn’t like the code. you just need to add a check to see if $errors is set:
if(isset($errors)){echo Arr::get($errors, ‘title’);}
[...] Come nella puntata precedente ringraziamo a Kowser autore del bellissimo articolo link, passimo ora a presentare la seconda parte, il post originale potete trovarlo seguendo il seguente link [...]
Your tutorial was great to follow. Just a few things that were missing that I would hope you could help me with..
When trying to post a comment this error comes up:
Database_Exception [ 1364 ]: Field ‘time’ doesn’t have a default value
What line of code and which file do we have to edit. so that it puts a time stamp in the Time field in the Database?
For users of version 3.3.1, the ‘Some Improvement’ section, I made the following change in kohana-blog/application/classes/controller/article.php to get this to work:
Changed line
$view = new View(‘article/single’);
to
$view = new View(‘article/single’, array($article_id));
For users of version 3.3.1, the ‘Add comments to an article’ section, I made the following change in kohana-blog/application/classes/controller/comment.php to get this to work:
Changed line
$this->request->redirect(“index.php/article/view/” . $comment->article_id);
to
$this->redirect(“/article/view/” . $comment->article_id);
For users of version 3.3.1, the ‘Working with ORM validation’ section, I made the following change in
kohana-blog/application/views/article/edit.php
from following two lines
to
Thanks to arumdev for already noting this fix.
Woops – same issue arumdev had — removes html from posts.
Within ‘span’ tags the kohana-blog/application/views/article/edit.php changes noted, there should be a check as follows
if(isset($errors)){echo Arr::get($errors, ‘title’);}