Introduction

This document describes the Maintainable PHP Framework. It is a based around the Model-View-Controller pattern and is modeled after Ruby on Rails 1.2. It is compatible with PHP version 5.1.4 and later.

This software is offered under a BSD license.

Git Repository

The Maintainable PHP Framework is hosted at GitHub:

https://github.com/maintainable/framework

The Git repository is the only way to obtain this software.

Directory Structure

All applications built using the Maintainable Framework share the exact same directory structure. This keeps projects consistent, allows team members to easily transition between projects, and allows for tooling that runs under the assumption of this structure.

Most of the server-side application development will take place in the app/ and test/ directories. Client-side CSS, images, and JavaScript will be in the public/ directory. Vendor libraries such as the Maintainable framework itself and its dependencies reside in vendor/ to permit easy upgrading.

Application Code

The application code resides under app/:

It is split into three different layers. Each layer has a directory under /app: models/, views/, and controllers. We also have an additional helpers/ directory under here for view helper methods.

• Models: /app/models/Users.php
• Controllers: /app/controllers/UsersController.php
• Views: /app/views/users/show.html
• Helpers: /app/helpers/UsersHelper.php

Web-accessible

Images, CSS, and JavaScript are all stored in public/:

Configuration

Environments

The three different runtime environments are:

• development
• production
• test

Every request will include the common config/environment.php file and then its respective /config/environments/{environment}.php file. These files include constants and configuration used throughout the application.

Normal MVC code that goes in app/ will never need require() statements as this is done automatically. Vendor (library) code in the vendor/ directory also does not need to be explicitly required because it will be autoloaded by the PEAR convention (which all vendor files must abide).

URL Routes

Request Routing is configured in /config/routes.php. This file defines what code gets run when a particular URL is requested. This is explained in more detail under Request Routing.

Vendor Libraries

All vendor libraries, including the Maintainable framework itself, are located under vendor/. The framework does not invent its own plugin system or other exotic loading techniques. Libraries must simply reside in this directory and abide by the PEAR naming conventions. The framework libraries are all under vendor/Mad/ and hence the classes are prefixed Mad_ by this convention.

Naming Conventions

The framework has important naming conventions that are crucial to how the code integrates together. By sticking to these conventions, it makes code more consistent and less work gluing the pieces together.

Models

Table	Class	File
users	User	models/User.php

Controllers

URL	Class	File	Method
/users/show	UsersController	controllers/UsersController.php	show()

Views

URL	HTML File	Ajax Response
/users/show	views/users/show.html	views/users/show.js