Using Zend_Controller_Route to automatically determine the controller based on the user role: how?

Question

I am currently figuring out a way to the the above.

My current application structure is as follows:

/modules
 / modulename
  /controllers
    /ProjectController.php

The application has 3 different user roles, each with functionality contained within these modules. I'd like to prevent having multiple actions for each user role in one controller as I think it makes my code less readable and ugly. So, I was thinking about a structure like this:

/modules
 / modulename
  /controllers
    /ProjectController.php
    /EmployeeProjectController.php
    /ExecutiveProjectController.php

This should work as follows:

• Projectcontroller.php should be loaded for admin users
• EmployeeProjectController.php should be loaded for employees
• ExecutiveProjectController.php should be loaded for executives

Of course, I could relatively easy a different URL scheme to provide for this for each user role, but I do not want this. I want a uniform URL scheme.

Next step would then be to create routes for each of the controllers to rewrite them to another controller. I'd like to prevent this as well.

I want a way to globally tell the router to prefix controllers with 'Executive' or 'Employee' or whatever, based on the user role.

What would be the best way to this?

Answer 1

Sounds like you could use a front controller plugin with a routeStartup() method that examines the Zend_Auth instance and adds the role-specific routes (from INI or XML file, for example).

Something like this:

class My_Controller_Plugin_RouteByAuth extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
    public function routeStartup()
    {
        $auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();
        if (!$auth->hasIdentity()){
            return;
        }
        $identity = $auth->getIdentity();
        if ($identity->isAdmin()){
            $this->_addRoutes('routes_admin.ini');
        } else if ($identity->isEmployee()){
            $this->_addRoutes('routes_employee.ini');
        } else if ($identity->isExecutive()){
            $this->_addRoutes('routes_executive.ini');
        } else {
            return;
        }
    }

    protected function _addRoutes($file)
    {
        $front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
        $router = $front->getRouter();
        $routes = new Zend_Config_Ini(APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/ ' . $file);
        $router->addConfig($routes);
    }
}

Not tested, but I hope this conveys a core of a workable idea.