Zend without Database

Question

Hi,
i googled for an hour now but maybe my Google-Fu is just too weak, i couldn't find a solution.

I want to create an application that queries a service via JSON requests (all data and backend/business logic is stored in the service). With plain PHP it's simple enough since i just make a curl request, json_decode the result and get what i need. This already works quite well.

A request might look like this:

Call http://service-host/userlist with body:

{"logintoken": "123456-1234-5678-901234"}

Get Result:

{
  "status": "Ok",
  "userlist":[
     {"name": "foo", "id": 1},
     {"name": "bar", "id": 2}
  ]
}

Now we want to get that into the Zend Framework since it's a hobby project and we want to learn about Zend. The problem is that all information i could find use a Database.

Is there even a way to create a Zend Project that does not use a Database? And how can i write a model that represents the actions instead of objects and object-relations?

Answer 1

Have a look at Zend_Json and Zend_Http (or just use plain cURL).

As for your model, there should not be a difference whether the data source is a database or webservice. Just have one class that knows how to query the datasource. Whether the implementation of something like getUserById queries a database or a webservice is not important, e.g.

class UserGateway
{
    protected $_dataSource;
    public function __construct($dataSource)
    {
        $this->_dataSource = $dataSource;
    }
    public function getUserById($id)
    {
        // interact with datasource instance to retrieve a user by ID
    }
}

and then for $dataSource something like

class UserDb extends Zend_Db_Table {}

or something like

class UserWebService extends Zend_Http_Client {}

In other words, just create appropriate classes you can pass to the UserGateway, e.g.

$users = new UserGateway(new UserWebService);
$users->findById(123);

And exactly how you find the user then is an implementation detail in the Gateway and/or the data source class.

You might also be interested in Zend_Rest_Client and

• Building RESTful Services with Zend Framework
• Getting started with REST using Zend Framework
• RESTful Web Services with Zend Framework

Answer 2

Since Zend Framework uses an MVC architecture (Model-View-Controller) the layers are easily interchangeable. Just write some classes that abstract you data sources and use them as your Model.

For example, I like to use Doctrine as a model layer in my projects instead of the table interface classes that come with ZF. Doctrine also does database abstraction, but you can substitute it with anything you like. It doesn't have to be database stuff.