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Quick Start

In this example, /hello/world?message=welcome will display a page containing the message provided through the URL. This requires several steps:

  • Create a controller to obtain the message from the URL, and pass it as a variable to the view
  • Create a view to display a page containing the message
  • Create a route to match the URL to the controller

Throughout this example, we will work in the Application module of the skeleton. The relevant files are located under module/Application.

Install the Laminas MVC Skeleton Application

To get started, install the skeleton application via Composer.

If you have not yet done so, install Composer. Once you have, use the create-project command to create a new application:

$ composer create-project -s dev laminas/laminas-mvc-skeleton my-application

Create a Controller

Laminas MVC has several base controller classes for you to start with:

  • AbstractActionController matches routes to methods within this class. For example, if you had a route with the "list" action, the "listAction" method will be called.

  • AbstractRestfulController determines the HTTP method from the request, and calls a method according to that. For example, a POST HTTP method will call the update() method in the class.

  • You can also create custom controllers by implementing Laminas\Stdlib\DispatchableInterface.

Learn more about controllers in the chapter on controllers.

We will use the AbstractActionController base controller. Create the file src/Application/Controller/HelloController.php. Add the following code:

<?php
namespace Application\Controller;

use Laminas\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController;
use Laminas\View\Model\ViewModel;

// Create an action controller.
class HelloController extends AbstractActionController
{
    // Define an action "world".
    public function worldAction()
    {
        // Get "message" from the query parameters.
        // In production code, it's a good idea to sanitize user input.
        $message = $this->params()->fromQuery('message', 'hello');

        // Pass variables to the view.
        return new ViewModel(['message' => $message]);
    }
}

By default, this controller will render the view script located in view/application/hello/world.phtml. You can customize this behavior. Learn more about views in the laminas-view documentation.

Create a View Script

Create the file view/application/hello/world.phtml and add the following code:

<h1>Greetings!</h1>

<p>You said "<?php echo $this->escapeHtml($message) ?>".</p>

Escaping output

The method escapeHtml() is a view helper, and it's designed to help mitigate XSS attacks. Never trust user input. If you are at all uncertain about the source of a variable in your view, escape it using one of the view helpers, depending on the type of data.

Create a Route

Routes determine which controller to call based on the URI and other information from the request.

Configure a route and a controller in module/Application/config/module.config.php:

return [
    'router' => [
        'routes' => [
            // Route name: used to generate links, among other things.
            'hello-world' => [
                'type' => Laminas\Router\Http\Literal::class, // exact match of URI path
                'options' => [
                    'route' => '/hello/world', // URI path
                    'defaults' => [
                        'controller' => Application\Controller\HelloController::class, // unique name
                        'action'     => 'world',
                    ],
                ],
            ],
        ],
    ],
    'controllers' => [
        // Tell the application how to instantiate our controller class
        'factories' => [
            Application\Controller\HelloController::class => Laminas\ServiceManager\Factory\InvokableFactory::class,
        ],
    ],
];

When the URI path of the request matches /hello/world, the specified controller and action will be used. The controller name must be present under the controllers key in the configuration. The associated class will then be instantiated and invoked.

Learn more about routing in the laminas-router documentation.

Test it Out

Create a new vhost pointing its document root to the public directory of your application, and fire it up in a browser. You should see the default homepage template of laminas-mvc-skeleton.

Append the path /hello/world to your URL and load the page. You should now get the following content:

<h1>Greetings!</h1>

<p>You said "hello".</p>

Append ?message=welcome to your URL. You should now get:

<h1>Greetings!</h1>

<p>You said "welcome".</p>

Congratulations! You've created your first Laminas MVC controller!

Learn More