php class not found while in (zend-based) include_path

Question

I have a class which is in a subdirectory of my library-folder in a zend-project. So lets say my app is in /Library/WebServer/Foo/, then php's include path is:

<?php echo get_include_path(); ?>

/Library/WebServer/Foo/application/../library:/Library/WebServer/Foo/library:/usr/share/zend-framework/library/

So now I want to create this class, ignore the random logic, and I should be able to reach it by just saying "new MyValidator_Usernameunique()" or something like that:

/Library/WebServer/Foo/library/MyValidator/Usernameunique.php

class MyValidator_Usernameunique extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
     const USERNAME_ALREADY_EXISTS = 'usernameAlreadyUsed';
     const DATABASE_FAILED = 'userDatabaseFailure';

     protected $_messageTemplates = array(
         self::USERNAME_ALREADY_EXISTS => "De gebruikersnaam '%value%' is al in gebruik, gebruik een andere."
         self::DATABASE_FAILED => "Er ging iets mis bij het verbinden met de database."
     );

    public function isValid($value)
    {
        $magic = rand(0,3)
        if($magic==0) {
            $this->_error(self::USERNAME_ALREADY_EXISTS);
            return false;
        }
        if($magic==1) {
            $this->_error(self::DATABASE_FAILED);
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }
}

So I did exactly that:

/Library/WebServer/Foo/library/Form/Register.php

class Form_Register extends Form_FooForm 
{
    public function __construct() 
    {
        parent::__construct();
        $username = $this->createText('username', 'Gebruikersnaam')->setRequired(true);
        $username->addValidator(new MyValidator_Usernameunique());
    }
}

Which gives:-

[Wed Jul 11 14:07:41 2012] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Fatal error: Class 'MyValidator_Usernameunique' not found in /Library/WebServer/Foo/library/Form/Register.php on line 14, referer: http://foo/

ignore the line number as I simplified the code a bit.

Of course, this comes natural as /Library/WebServer/Foo/library/MyValidator/ is not in my php include_path and I did not 'require' or 'include' or 'require_once' the file. Yet, as I understand, zend framework is supposed to autoload the file by replacing the _ with / and searching the include_path. And this seems to work fine for the register-form, but fails for the validator. Now, why is this? It is almost the same scenario. Moreover, it also fails when I try to create a MyValidator_Usernameunique directly in a controller-class with the same error-message.

Any thought or indication on why this happens is well appreciated. Moreover, please note, I I am not trying to fix this error, I am trying to better understand autoloading in zend. So please do not propose solutions which make the use of my validator redundant.

Answer 1

Looking at your code, and i might missed it, but it's not really the "standard" zend layout

i kind of expect to following in the path of your webapp (/Library/WebServer/Foo/)

• application
  • configs
  • controllers
  • etc
• library
• public

Now you want to add the validator to your library i would do it like

library

• MyApp
  • Validate
    • Validator.php

Inside Validator.php

class MyApp_Validate_Validator extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    //Do stuff here
}

Now that we have this extra part in the library we need to tell zend that we have a extra namespace with our own code in it

so in application.ini you configure it like this

autoloaderNamespaces.0 = MyApp_

Now the application (zend) should know where to look for your validator

so you can now do the following

create a form (best to place it in application/forms/ but it's up to you ofcourse)

class Form_Register extends Zend_Form {

    public function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();

        $username = $this->createText('username', 'Gebruikersnaam')
        ->setRequired(true)
        ->addValidator(new MyApp_Validate_Validator());

    }
}

Answer 2

For the purpose of this answer I am going to ignore everything above 'Foo' in your path as it is irrelevant.

In order to get your validator to autoload you need to do several things.

Firstly you need to create a folder `Foo/library/My' and then add the following line to your application.ini file:-

autoloadernamespaces[] = "My_"

This will tell Zend Framework where to look for your classes.

Next create the folder 'Foo/library/My/Validator' and then in that folder create 'Usernameunique.php' which should look something like this:-

class My_Validator_Usernameunique extends  Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    //All your class stuff goes here.
}

Then when you do:-

$username->addValidator(new My_Validator_Usernameunique());

It will autoload.

See the manual for more information.

The reason that autoloading works for your form is that the 'Forms' directory is automatically added to the autoloader include path by the framework, so it knows where to find it.

Autoloading works by, as you guessed, substituting '_' for '/' and then loading the class from the resulting path. However, paths other than the default paths need to be 'registered' in application.ini as in my example. Take a look at the code in Zend/Loader/Autoloader.php to learn what actually happens.