The document introduces the Zend Framework, which is a modular collection of PHP classes that simplify common tasks. It aims to be a leading PHP application development framework and demonstration of PHP 5 best practices. Some key components introduced include an MVC framework, database abstraction layer, input filtering, mail sending capabilities, and a Lucene-based search engine. The framework is open source under a BSD license and aims to make PHP application development simple while taking advantage of PHP 5 features.

1. Introducing: Zend Framework
John Coggeshall
Copyright © 2006, Zend Technologies Inc.

2. Welcome
• Today I’ll be introducing you to the Zend
Framework
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What it is
Why we’re doing it
How to use it
Where it’s going
How to be a part of it
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3. Getting Started
• Zend Framework is..
 A modular collection of PHP classes based on PHP 5 to
simplify common tasks
 A starting point for your applications
 A demonstration of PHP 5 best practices
 A smaller component of the PHP Collaboration Project
• Zend Framework isn’t…
 A free-reign open source project
 A religion
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4. Goals of the Framework
• Zend Framework strives to be fundamentally….
 An industry-leading framework for PHP application
development
 A partnership between many companies already
experienced in PHP Framework development
• Zend Framework strives to be technically…
 A source of high-quality, PHP 5 / E_STRICT compatible
application components
 Completely PHP 5 powered, requiring as few external PHP
extensions as necessary
 A minimal object hierarchy to achieve the necessary goals
 Modular design allowing developers to use the framework at
will, as they see fit.
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5. Why Yet another Framework?
• Keep PHP competitive with other technologies
 .NET, Java, etc.
• Provide “clean” IP to enable commercial use
 Real companies can’t just “borrow” code from the
Internet without clear licensing
• “Extreme Simplicity”: It may not be simple
•
technically, but using it should be.
Take full advantage of PHP 5
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6. The Framework License
• Zend Framework is licensed using a PHP/BSD
style license
 Anyone can use it, for anything, no strings attached –
period.
• Along with the license of the framework itself,
contributors must sign a Contributor License
Agreement (CLA)
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7. There’s no such thing as a free…
• Why spend so much time and effort on
something, just to give it away?
 Yes, we’re still interested in making money
• For the continued success of PHP it must be a
collaboration beyond OSS hackers
 Through the PHP Collaboration project, and projects
like Zend Framework, we can leverage the knowledge
of some of the best in the industry in the benefit of PHP
as a whole
 As you might expect, Zend benefits with PHP
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8. We eat our own dog food
• Zend Framework is more than unit-tested, it is
used in real-life production environments
 Gives us the ability to test performance, ease of use,
etc. in a practical environment
 Zend and its partners are already using the preview
release of the Framework to speed development of
their applications
 Both the Framework homepage (framework.zend.com)
and our new Developer’s Zone (devzone.zend.com)
use the preview release of Framework as their
foundation.
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9. The grail: Extreme Simplicity
• Many of PHP 5’s most exciting new technologies
are really simple to use:
 Simple XML
 SOAP
 Tidy
• While the underlying technologies may be
extremely complex, the end-user APIs are
reduced to an extremely simple interface
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10. Getting the Grail
• To achieve the grail of extreme simplicity
 “Simple things should be simple, complex things should
be possible”
• Use-at-will architecture
 You shouldn’t be forced into buying the whole pizza
just for a slice
 Use individual components (controller/model) without
being forced to use everything (your own
template/view)
• Configuration-less
 The framework should be plug-and-go, no
configuration files necessary
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11. Zend Framework from 10,000 feet
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12. Completely PHP-5 focused
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Requires PHP 5.0.4 or later for near future
Takes full advantage of the PHP exception model
Constants are all at the class-level
No functions in global namespace
ZE2 / SPL technologies fully utilized where it
makes sense
Black magic __magic() functions used very
sparsely
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13. Preview Release
• PR 1.2 is the latest preview release of the
Framework including many immediately useful
tools such as:
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A basic MVC framework for application design
A PDO-based database layer
Feed (RSS, Atom) ingestion and manipulation
An HTTP client
Input data filtering
Json support for AJAX
PDF generation and manipulation
RPC / Web service support
And more!
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14. Getting Zend Framework
• You can either get the framework preview
release or check out the latest repository version
• Preview Release: http://framework.zend.com/
• Repository:
$ svn checkout http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/trunk
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15. Installing Zend Framework
• Installing the framework is very easy, just modify
your include_path to include the library/
directory
From php.ini:
……
include_path=“.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/ZendFramework”
……
From .htaccess
……
php_value include_path “.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/ZendFramework”
……
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16. MVC Pattern
• MVC, or Model View Controller pattern is a
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powerful technique for developing user
interfaces
Originally was conceived for client-side GUI
applications and adopted to the web
Zend Framework provides a simplistic MVC
model
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17. Example Controller
• Note: indexAction() is declared abstract in
Zend_Controller_Action, and therefore must be
defined in any Action/Page controller
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18. Passing Parameters
• Beyond $_GET/$_POST you can also pass
parameters to a specific controller action by
appending them to the URL:
 http://localhost/foo/dosomething/param1/value1/param2/value2
• Parameters can be accessed from within the
action by name
 $this->_getParam(<key> [, <default value>]);
 $this->_getAllParams();
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19. Dealing with 404s
• 404 errors are no longer the responsibility of
•
Apache per-se, and are more likely to result in a
‘Class not found’ / ‘Method not found’ exception
To deal with these Zend Framework provides two
methods
 In the event of a controller not found, the
IndexController::noRoute() method will be called
instead
 In the event a controller action is not defined, it is the
responsibility of the controller to implement safeguards
(i.e. __call() which traps bad action calls)
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20. Chaining Controllers
• Controllers can be chained together to either
break business logic out into components, or to
otherwise redirect the user
 $this->_forward(<controller_name> [, <parameters>])
 Parameters are a series of key/value pairs
 Controller Chaining does not occur until the current
action is complete, to immediately forward you must
return from the current action after calling _forward()
• Forwarding does not cause a refresh on the
client, to physically refresh the browser
 $this->_redirect(<url>);
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21. Final thoughts on MVC
• Although the pattern dictates three individual
•
class types, they are as conceptual as functional
For instance a “model” or “view” isn’t absolutely
necessary to gain most of the benefit of MVC
 You can always perform queries from a controller
 You can always print output from a controller
• Although not necessary, they are never the less
recommended
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22. Input Filtering
Copyright © 2006, Zend Technologies Inc.

23. Zend_InputFilter
• Security is a primary concern in Zend Framework
• As such, we provide facilities to clean and
manage untrusted data in your applications via
Zend_InputFilter and Zend_Filter
 Provides a number of methods for filtering data against
many common data types (digits, alphanumeric,
alpha, phone, etc.)
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24. Using Zend_InputFilter
• With Input Filter you can both test data types and
retrieve filtered data easily
• Note, by default the source of the data and all of
it’s references are destroyed when filtered
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25. Zend_Mail
• Simplifies building and sending e-mail
• Supports MIME types and multipart e-mail
• Supports multiple transports and persistent
connections automatically
• Supports large file attachments via the streams
API improving performance
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26. Sending HTML mail is now really easy
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27. Zend_Search
• PHP 5 implementation of the popular Lucene
search engine from the Java world.
• Simplified API
• Requires no special PHP extensions
• Fully compatible with the binary index format of
Java Lucene 1.4 and above
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28. Zend_Search Features
• Ranked Searching
 Best results always first
• Many Query types: phrase, wildcard, proximity
• Search by field (Author, title, body, etc.)
• Robust, and simple API
 One-method intelligent searches against indexes, or
complex OO queries if desired
 Index multiple document types, with different field
requirements
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29. Using Zend_Search
• Using Zend Search is very easy
• The search engine also boasts a parser for google-like searching: zend php -java
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30. Adding documents to the index
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31. Cool things about Zend_Search
• The Lucene search engine allows you to index
multiple document types in a single index, each
with different index fields
 Index Individual documents with different searchable
criterion
 I.e. Index code samples by functions used, while
articles by title, author, and keywords in the same
index
• Because it is 100% compatible with Lucene 1.4+,
it is compatible with all pre-created index files
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32. Questions?
Copyright © 2006, Zend Technologies Inc.