overview.md

An overview of Minz classes

It might be intimidating to dig into the source code of a framework. This chapter is here to guide you. Hopefully, there’s not too many components in Minz so we’ll soon have covered it all.

Note that I only make quick presentations here. You’ll have to read the code and the comments to learn how to use these classes.

I have highlighted the classes that I believe are the most important of Minz. You’ll often have to interact with them.

Core classes

• \Minz\Configuration loads and stores your configuration;
  • \Minz\Dotenv is often used in configuration files, to load environment variables;
• \Minz\Request abstracts HTTP or CLI requests;
• \Minz\Response abstracts HTTP or CLI responses, it embeds a \Minz\Output (interface) which is in charge of rendering the content. Here is the list of available outputs:
  • \Minz\Output\View is a simple template system to render your content, often used for (but not limited to) HTML;
  • \Minz\Output\Text renders text;
  • \Minz\Output\File renders files;
• \Minz\Router is in charge of the routing of your application;
• \Minz\Url renders the URLs of your application, using the information from the router;
• \Minz\Engine does the plumbing of your application, executing a controller action based on a given request and returning its response;

To learn how to use these classes, read the “getting started” guide.

Models and database

• \Minz\Database abstracts the connection to the database, it acts as a wrapper around the PHP \PDO class.
• \Minz\Database\Recordable provides useful methods to manipulate the models in the database. It is usable together with the following classes:
  • \Minz\Database\Table to define the database table of the model;
  • \Minz\Database\Column to define the database columns of the model;
  • \Minz\Database\Factory to easily create models with default values during the tests;
  • \Minz\Database\Helper which provides useful methods to the Recordable trait;
  • \Minz\Database\Lockable provides some methods to (un)lock a model;
• \Minz\Validable a trait to validate the models properties values. It is used alongside with Checks:
  • \Minz\Validable\Check the base class extended by the other classes;
  • \Minz\Validable\Comparison allows to compare the values;
  • \Minz\Validable\Email allows to check email addresses;
  • \Minz\Validable\Format allows to check the format of a string;
  • \Minz\Validable\Inclusion allows to check that a value is included in a given set;
  • \Minz\Validable\Length allows to check the min and/or max length of a string;
  • \Minz\Validable\Presence allows to check that a property is present (not null nor an empty string);
  • \Minz\Validable\Url allows to check URL addresses.

Additional classes

• \Minz\Form provides an easy way to handle forms. It is used alongside with:
  • \Minz\Form\Field to declare fields in the forms;
  • \Minz\Form\Csrf to protect against CSRF attacks in the forms;
  • \Minz\Form\Check to declare custom checks in the forms;
• \Minz\Log logs errors and information to syslog;
• \Minz\Job to manage asynchronous jobs, it is used with \Minz\Job\Controller;
• \Minz\Migration\Migrator manages the migrations of your data, it is used with \Minz\Migration\Controller;
• \Minz\Controller\ErrorHandler allows to execute code on errors triggered in controllers;
• \Minz\Csrf protects you from Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks;
• \Minz\Email is an utility class to sanitize and validate emails;
• \Minz\Flash to pass messages from a page to another through redirections;
• \Minz\Random to generate random values;
• \Minz\Time abstracts the time;
• \Minz\Mailer is a wrapper around PHPMailer to send emails;
• \Minz\File abstracts uploaded files;
• \Minz\Translatable to mark a Validable message to be translated.

The three last classes are very useful during tests!

Tests

Finally, Minz provides a bunch of helpers and assertions for PHPUnit:

• \Minz\Tests\ApplicationHelper allows you to execute a request against your application and get its response in a single line of code;
• \Minz\Tests\InitializerHelper reinitializes the database, session and mailer before each tests;
• \Minz\Tests\ResponseAsserts provides a bunch of assertions to test the response of your application;
• \Minz\Tests\TimeHelper freezes the time, on the condition that you use the Time class;
• \Minz\Tests\Mailer catches emails sent by the mailer and allows you to test them with the assertions provided by \Minz\Tests\MailerAsserts;
• \Minz\Tests\FilesHelper provides a method to copy files in a temporary directory in order to simulate an upload to your application.