Question

I am working with lemonade-php. My code is at https://github.com/sofadesign/limonade.

The issue I am having is when I try to run

class syscore {

    public function hello(){
        set('post_url',  params(0));
        include("./templates/{$this->temp}/fullwidth.tpl"); 
        return render('fullwidth');

    }

}

which then loads the fullwidth.tpl and runs function fullwidth

fullwidth.tpl

<?php

global $post;
function fullwidth($vars){ 
    extract($vars);
    $post = h($post_url);

}

    print_r($this->post($post));    

?>

it seems to pass the $post_url but I can not pass it again to the print_r($this->post($post));

However when I try to run print_r($this->post($post)) inside the fullwidth function it says it can not find the post() function

I have tried a number of things like below

function fullwidth($vars){ 
        extract($vars);
        $post = h($post_url);
    print_r(post($post));
}

I tried re connecting to the syscore by

$redi = new syscore();
$redi->connection() <-- this works
$redi->post($post) <-- this does not

Here is my full class syscore

class syscore {

    // connect
    public function connect($siteDBUserName,$siteDBPass,$siteDBURL,$siteDBPort, $siteDB,$siteTemp){
        for ($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
         $m = new Mongo("mongodb://{$siteDBUserName}:{$siteDBPass}@{$siteDBURL}:{$siteDBPort}", array("persist" => "x", "db"=>$siteDB));
        }

        // select a database
       $this->db = $m->$siteDB;
       $this->temp = $siteTemp;
    }

    public function hello(){
        set('post_url',  params(0));
        include("./templates/{$this->temp}/fullwidth.tpl"); 
        return render('fullwidth');

    }

    public function menu($data)
    {

        $this->data = $data;
        $collection = $this->db->redi_link;
        // find everything in the collection
        //print $PASSWORD;
        $cursor = $collection->find(array("link_active"=> "1"));

        if ($cursor->count() > 0)
        {
            $fetchmenu = array();
            // iterate through the results
            while( $cursor->hasNext() ) {   
                $fetchmenu[] = ($cursor->getNext());
            }
            return $fetchmenu;
        }
        else
        {
            var_dump($this->db->lastError());
        }
    }

    public function post($data)
    {

        $this->data = $data;
        $collection = $this->db->redi_posts;
        // find everything in the collection
        //print $PASSWORD;
        $cursor = $collection->find(array("post_link"=> $data));

        if ($cursor->count() > 0)
        {
            $posts = array();
            // iterate through the results
            while( $cursor->hasNext() ) {   
                $posts[] = ($cursor->getNext());
            }
            return $posts;
        }
        else
        {
            var_dump($this->db->lastError());
        }
    }

}

Answer 1

It looks like you are having some issues understanding the execution path that PHP is taking when trying to render your template. Let’s take a more in-depth look, shall we?

// We're going to call "syscore::hello" which will include a template and try to render it
public function hello(){
    set('post_url',  params(0));  // set locals for template
    include("./templates/{$this->temp}/fullwidth.tpl");  // include the template
    return render('fullwidth'); // Call fullwidth(array('post_url' => 'http://example.com/path'))
}

The trick to solving this one is to understand how PHP include works. When you call include("./templates/{$this->temp}/fullwidth.tpl") some of your code is executing in the scope of the syscore object, namely:

global $post;

and

print_r($this->post($post));

fullwidth is created in the global scope at this point, but has not yet been called. When render calls fullwidth you’re no longer in the syscore scope, which is why you cannot put $this->post($post) inside without triggering an error.

Ok, so how do we solve it? Glad you asked.

1. We could probably refactor syscore::post to be a static method, but that would then require syscore::db to be static, and always return the SAME mongodb instance (singleton pattern). You definitely do not want to be creating 1000 Mongo instances for each syscore instance.

2. We could just abuse the framework. A much poorer solution, but it will get the job done.

fullwidth.tpl

<?php

function fullwidth($vars){ 
    $post_url = ''; // put the variables you expect into the symbol table
    extract($vars, EXTR_IF_EXISTS); // set EXTR_IF_EXISTS so you control what is added.
    $syscore_inst = new syscore; 
    $post = h($post_url);
    print_r($syscore->post($post)); // I think a puppy just died.    
}

Look the second way is a complete hack, and writing code like that will probably mean you won’t get promoted. But it should work.

But let’s say you wanted to get promoted, you would make good, shiny code.

// Note: Capitalized class name
class Syscore {
protected static $_db;

public static function db () {
    if (! static::$_db) {
        static::$_db = new Mongo(...);
    }
    return static::$_db;
}

// @FIXME rename to something more useful like "find_posts_with_link"
public static post($url) {
    $collection = static::db()->redi_posts;
    // find everything in the collection
    $cursor = $collection->find(array("post_link"=> $url));

    // Changed to a try-catch, since we shouldn't presume an empty find is
    // an error.
    try {
        $posts = array();
        // iterate through the results
        while( $cursor->hasNext() ) {   
            $posts[] = ($cursor->getNext());
        }
        return $posts;
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        var_dump($this->db->lastError());
    }
}

}

Then in your fullwidth function, we don’t have to do any of that stupid nonsense of treating an instance method like it were a static method.

function fullwidth($vars){ 
    $post_url = ''; // put the variables you expect into the symbol table
    extract($vars, EXTR_IF_EXISTS); // set EXTR_IF_EXISTS so you control what is added.
    $post = h($post_url);
    print_r(Syscore::post($post)); // static method. \O/ Rainbows and unicorns.   
}