pakrchen/caravel

A plain PHP framework.

caravel

A plain PHP framework. (to quickly build a web app, see caravel-mvc), _(*1)

How to use Caravel framework

1. You need to create a file named "composer.json" in your project's root directory. And the content in it is like below., _(*2)

   {
     "require": {
       "pakrchen/caravel": "dev-master"
     }
   }
   

2. Then run "composer install" in the root directory, where Composer will fetch the framework as a package automatically., _(*3)

   If you have not installed Composer in your server, install it. Composer makes you powerful and you will surely benefit from various other excellent packages., _(*4)

   Here is an instruction of the installation of Composer: https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#installation-nix., _(*5)

3. You have gotten the core part of the framework. Good job! Now create two folders named "app" and "public" respectively in the root directory., _(*6)

   In "public" folder, create a file named "index.php", which is the only entrance of your web application. And the content in it is like below., _(*7)

   <?php
   
   require_once dirname(__DIR__) . "/vendor/autoload.php";
   
   $app = new Caravel\App();
   
   $app->run();
   

   In "app" folder, create a folder named "controllers" to store your controllers, a folder named "models" to store your models, and a folder named "views" to store your views., _(*8)

   That's right! This is what we call the "MVC" structure. (see caravel-mvc), _(*9)

4. In Caravel framework, we require a "custom.php" file in the app directory to accept your custom configuration., _(*10)

   For example, the configuration below tells the framework where you store your controllers and models. This is required., _(*11)

   <?php
   
   use Caravel\App;
   use Caravel\Core\ClassLoader;
   use Caravel\Core\Log;
   
   /*
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Register The Class Loader
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   | You may use the class loader to load your controllers and models.
   | This is useful for keeping all of your classes in the "global" namespace.
   |
   */
   
   ClassLoader::addPaths(array(
   
       APP::getAppRoot() . "/controllers",
       APP::getAppRoot() . "/models",
   
   ))->register();
   

   This means that you can change the name of the folder where you store your controllers as long as you define it in "custom.php"., _(*12)

   Obviously, you can also add additional folders such as "libraries" and let Caravel know how to find it., _(*13)

   Furthermore, You can also define where to store application's logs and how to handle an exception which is not caught by appending these codes to "custom.php". However, this is optional., _(*14)

   /*
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Application Error Logger
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   | Here we will configure the error logger setup for the application.
   | By default we will build a basic log file setup which creates a single
   | file for logs.
   |
   */
   
   Log::useFile("/tmp/caravel.log");
   
   /*
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Application Error Handler
   |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   | Here you may handle any errors that occur in your application, including
   | logging them or displaying custom views for specific errors.
   |
   */
   
   App::error(function(Exception $e) {
   
       Log::exception($e);
   
   });
   

An example for you

I believe that a pratical example is better than any word., _(*15)

A simple demo is offered in caravel-mvc. You can find it in https://github.com/pakrchen/caravel-mvc to preview what your project would look like. It is strongly recommeded., _(*16)

An nginx configuration for you

I hope it helps. But you might have to adjust it for your environment., _(*17)

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name your-domain; # eg. example.com
  root your-project-root-directory/public; # eg. /data/www/example/public
  index index.php;

  access_log where-you-store-access-log; # eg. /data/logs/example_access.log;
  error_log where-you-store-error-log; # eg. /data/logs/example_error.log;

  # Check if file exists
  if (!-e $request_filename)
  {
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php last;
    break;
  }

  location ~ \..*/.*\.php$
  {
    # I'm pretty sure this stops people trying to traverse your site to get to other PHP files
    return 403;
  }

  location ~* \.php {
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
    include fastcgi_params;
  }
}