Simple MVC Framework With PHP (bootstrapping)

Let’s walk through the creating another PHP framework together! With all the fun stuffs in modern day PHP frameworks, from scratch to finish!

Part 1: Introduction

Copy below code and paste into your .htaccess file

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On

    # Stop processing if already in the /public directory
    RewriteRule ^public/ - [L]

    # Static resources if they exist
    RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/public/$1 -f
    RewriteRule (.+) public/$1 [L]

    # Route all other requests
    RewriteRule (.*) public/index.php?route=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

Your .htaccess fille should look something like this:

Create an app.php file inside the config folder, this file will hold basic app configuration:

copy and paste this code inside:

<?php
define('APP_NAME', "MVC Framework");
define('APP_ROOT', dirname(dirname(__FILE__)));

navigate to the index.php file in you public folder and include the app.php file

<?php 
require_once '../config/app.php';

if you did everything properly, you should be able to echo APP_NAME in your index.php file and get “MVC Framework”

Auto-loading:

For the purpose of autoloading classes, we will be using composer

(Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.) credit getcomposer.org

In your root directory create a file and name it composer.json, in this file copy and paste this code:

{
    "name": "emiracle/simple-mvc-framework-with-php",
    "description": "Simple MVC framework with PHP",
    "autoload": {
        "psr-4": {
            "App\\": "app/"
        }
    }
}

If you don’t have composer installed head over here and install it:

Your composer.json file should look something like this:

psr-4 auto-loading standard is basically a standard in php that attempts to map a path to a particular namespace, this also further guesses this sub folders according to the namespace defined in it

In the image above, the autoloader will automatically look for any file that has a namespace starting with App in the app directory.

Create a “Controller” and “Model” folder in your “app” directory

The resulting folder structure should look something like this:

Now run the below command in your terminal to install composer dependencies:

composer dump-autoload

require the autoload file in your public/index.php

require_once '../vendor/autoload.php';

TESTING THE BOOTSTRAPPING

Write a simple class with a static method that returns the string “bootstrap is working”. as seen in the image below:

now call this method in your index.php as seen below:

If you get a response saying “bootstrap working” kudos! you’re good to go!

Part 3: Simple MVC Framework With PHP (Routing)