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phpzend-frameworkbootstrappingzend-framework-mvc

Executing a function before view renders

I'm new to Zend Framework MVC. I love a lot of things about working with an MVC environment, but find myself confused about it structurally sometimes.

I have a simple task, I'd like to flag certain users on our site to track their movements. For this I've set up a simple table in the database, and started to code in my _initTracking() function into the bootstrap. I then realized I was approaching this from the wrong direction - I'd like this to be one of the last functions that fires, to avoid mucking up my tracking entries with header redirects, and to ensure all autoloaded classes are present. How do I do this? Is there an "onBeforeRender" type of function? If there is I couldn't find it.

Thanks

Solution

  • I would suggest using a ZF plugin. You could track user's actions in plugin's postDispatch() or dispatchLoopShutdown() method, depending on how granular your tracking needs to be.

    Some reading about ZF plugins - http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.controller.plugins.html

    Also a really neat article about request lifecycle in Zend Framework - http://www.eschrade.com/page/zend-framework-request-lifecycle-4b9a4288.