Zend_Controller_Action is an abstract class you may use
for implementing Action Controllers for use with the Front
Controller when building a website based on the
Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.
To use Zend_Controller_Action, you will need to
subclass it in your actual action controller classes (or subclass it
to create your own base class for action controllers). The most
basic operation is to subclass it, and create action methods that
correspond to the various actions you wish the controller to handle
for your site. Zend_Controller's routing and dispatch handling
will autodiscover any methods ending in 'Action' in your class as
potential controller actions.
For example, let's say your class is defined as follows:
<?php
class FooController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function barAction()
{
// do something
}
public function bazAction()
{
// do something
}
}
The above FooController class (controller foo) defines two actions, bar and baz.
There's much more that can be accomplished than this, such as custom initialization actions, default actions to call should no action (or an invalid action) be specified, pre- and post-dispatch hooks, and a variety of helper methods. This chapter serves as an overview of the action controller functionality
Default Behaviour
By default, the front controller enables the ViewRenderer action helper. This helper takes care of injecting the view object into the controller, as well as automatically rendering views. You may disable it within your action controller via one of the following methods:
<?php
class FooController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function init()
{
// Local to this controller only; affects all actions,
// as loaded in init:
$this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
// Globally:
$this->_helper->removeHelper('viewRenderer');
// Also globally, but would need to be in conjunction with the
// local version in order to propagate for this controller:
Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()
->setParam('noViewRenderer', true);
}
}
initView(), getViewScript(),
render(), and renderScript() each
proxy to the ViewRenderer unless the helper is not
in the helper broker or the noViewRenderer flag has
been set.
You can also simply disable rendering for an individual view by setting the ViewRenderer's noRender flag:
<?php
class FooController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function barAction()
{
// disable autorendering for this action only:
$this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender();
}
}
The primary reasons to disable the ViewRenderer are if you simply do not need a view object or if you are not rendering via view scripts (for instance, when using an action controller to serve web service protocols such as SOAP, XML-RPC, or REST). In most cases, you will never need to globally disable the ViewRenderer, only selectively within individual controllers or actions.