Zend Framework - Use data collected from database in multiple actions

Question

If I want to gather some data from the database and use it in multiple actions of a controller, how would I do this?

Currently I just access the model and retrieve the data separately in each action (yes, I know this is inefficient... it's why I'm asking you all!):

public function indexAction()
{
    $model = $this->_getStuffModel();
    $this->view->results = $model->fetchEntries();
}

public function anotherAction()
{
    $model = $this->_getStuffModel();
    $foo = $model->fetchEntries();
    foreach($foo as $k => $v)
    {
        //manipulate the data
    }
    $this->_helper->json($theoutput);
}

If I were not doing this in Zend Framework I would just put it in the constructor and then be good to go with $this->whatever in any method of the object but I don't see how to do this in ZF (I tried sticking it in init() but it didn't work... maybe I just made a stupid coding error and that is actually the correct place to do this?).

*EDIT: If I have, say, 7 actions in a controller and I put the code that hits the database in the init() method then I will hit the database with each and every action that is called. That won't do.

Answer 1

The init() Action is called on every request against the controller. If you do:

protected $model;

public function init()
{
    $this->model = $this->_getstuff();
}

public function indexAction()
{
   echo $this->model->name;
}

than it should work.

Answer 2

I think the @ArneRie init() solution is what you want. Another solution will be to cache the Zend_Db_Rowset object with all the entries using Zend_Cache and serve it from cache. You can hit the database only when new data is added ( and the save function can register an observer that will delete related cache entries), or maybe each 10 minutes ( and you check the timestamp of the cache entry) or another business logic of your choosing.