Question

I am trying to build an abstract base controller that will extend all other controllers. So far I have something like:

    abstract class BaseController {

     protected $view;
     protected $user;

     public function __construct() {
       $this->view = new View; //So a view is accessible to subclasses via $this->view->set();
       $this->user = new User; //So I can check $this->user->hasPermission('is_admin');
     }
     abstract function index();

    }

class UserController extends BaseController {

  public function index() {}

  public function login() {

  if($this->user->isLoggedin()) {
   redirect to my account
  }
  else {
      $this->view->set('page_title', "User Login");
      $this->view->set('sidebar', $sidebar); //contains sidebar HTML
      $this->view->set('content', $content); //build main page HTML
      $this->view->render();

}
}
}

The problem i get is I get errors like this:

Call to a member function set() on a non-object in C:\xampp\htdocs\program\core\controllers\admin.controller.php on line 44

If I put the $user and $views properties in the main controller (ie UserController), everything works fine. But I only want to set up these objects once (in the base controller) and not have to add $this->view = new View; in all my controllers.

FIXED: I overrode my constructors and I thought you couldn’t call parent::__construct() on abstract classes.

Answer 1

What you are trying to do should work. Make sure you aren’t covering up your constructor in UserController. (i.e., if it has a constructor, it needs to call its parent constructor.)

Otherwise, do some debugging to see where $this->view is being reset.