PHP MVC: How to implement an effective Controller/View Association like ZendFramework guys do!

Question

Hi, I am making my own PHP-MVC framework. i have a question regarding Controller and View Association. I love the way Zend framework uses view within Controller as follow:

$this->view->data = 'Data here';

so it can be used in view as follow:

echo $this->data;

I am wondering how can i implement this association. I want to remove codes between /** **/ and want to replace with some magic functions. My codes for controller as as follow:

 class UserController extends Controller{
  /************************************/
  public function __construct(){
   $this->view = new View();
   $this->view->setLayout( 'home' );
  }
  function __destruct(){
   $this->view->render();
  }
  /************************************/
  public function index(){
   $this->redirect('user/login');
  }
  public function login(){   
  }
  public function register(){
  }
  public function forgotPassword(){
  }
 }

Thanks and best regards, -Navi

Answer 1

You don't really need magic functions to implement this. You can just do:

$this->view->var1 = 'val1';

Create a method in your controller called set or assign that takes a name and value and store in an array. Before you call view, loop through that array and assign to your view object:

foreach ($this->viewVars as $viewVar) {
    $this->view->$viewVar['name'] = $viewVar['val'];
}

Answer 2

Use the magic method __set() and __get().

protected $_data = array();

public function __set($name, $value)
{
   $this->_data[$name] = $value;
}

public function __get($name)
{
   return $this->_data[$name];
}

Then implement error handling when retrieving values which are not set, etc...