Introduction

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The Conventional Modular directory structure allows you to separate different MVC applications into self-contained units, and re-use them with different front controllers. To illustrate such a directory structure:

docroot/
    index.php
application/
    default/
        controllers/
            IndexController.php
            FooController.php
        models/
        views/
            scripts/
                index/
                foo/
            helpers/
            filters/
    blog/
        controllers/
            IndexController.php
        models/
        views/
            scripts/
                index/
            helpers/
            filters/
    news/
        controllers/
            IndexController.php
            ListController.php
        models/
        views/
            scripts/
                index/
                list/
            helpers/
            filters/

In this paradigm, the module name serves as a prefix to the controllers it contains. The above example contains three module controllers, 'Blog_IndexController', 'News_IndexController', and 'News_ListController'. Two global controllers, 'IndexController' and 'FooController' are also defined; neither of these will be namespaced. This directory structure will be used for examples in this chapter.

No Namespacing in the Default Module

Note that in the default module, controllers do not need a namespace prefix. Thus, in the example above, the controllers in the default module do not need a prefix of 'Default_' -- they are simply dispatched according to their base controller name: 'IndexController' and 'FooController'. A namespace prefix is used in all other modules, however.

So, how do you implement such a directory layout using the Zend Framework MVC components?