3 Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::MoreCatalystBasics - Catalyst Tutorial - Part 3: More Catalyst Application Development Basics
8 This is B<Part 3 of 10> for the Catalyst tutorial.
10 L<Tutorial Overview|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial>
16 L<Introduction|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Intro>
20 L<Catalyst Basics|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::CatalystBasics>
24 B<More Catalyst Basics>
28 L<Basic CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::BasicCRUD>
32 L<Authentication|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Authentication>
36 L<Authorization|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Authorization>
40 L<Debugging|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Debugging>
44 L<Testing|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Testing>
48 L<Advanced CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::AdvancedCRUD>
52 L<Appendices|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Appendices>
59 This part of the tutorial builds on the work done in Part 2 to explore
60 some features that are more typical of "real world" web applications.
61 From this part of the tutorial onward, we will be building a simple
62 book database application. Although the application will be too
63 limited to be of use to anyone, it should provide a basic environment
64 where we can explore a variety of features used in virtually all web
67 You can checkout the source code for this example from the catalyst
68 subversion repository as per the instructions in
69 L<Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Intro>
72 =head1 CREATE A NEW APPLICATION
74 The remainder of the tutorial will build an application call C<MyApp>.
75 Use the Catalyst C<catalyst.pl> script to initialize the framework for
76 an application called C<MyApp> (make sure you aren't still inside the
77 directory of the C<Hello> application from the previous part of the
82 created "MyApp/script"
86 created "MyApp/script/myapp_create.pl"
89 This creates a similar skeletal structure to what we saw in Part 2 of
90 the tutorial, except with C<MyApp> and C<myapp> substituted for
91 C<Hello> and C<hello>.
94 =head1 EDIT THE LIST OF CATALYST PLUGINS
96 One of the greatest benefits of Catalyst is that it has such a large
97 library of plugins available. Plugins are used to seamlessly integrate
98 existing Perl modules into the overall Catalyst framework. In general,
99 they do this by adding additional methods to the C<context> object
100 (generally written as C<$c>) that Catalyst passes to every component
101 throughout the framework.
103 By default, Catalyst enables three plugins/flags:
111 Enables the Catalyst debug output you saw when we started the
112 C<script/myapp_server.pl> development server earlier. You can remove
113 this item when you place your application into production.
115 As you may have noticed, C<-Debug> is not a plugin, but a I<flag>.
116 Although most of the items specified on the C<use Catalyst> line of your
117 application class will be plugins, Catalyst supports a limited number of
118 flag options (of these, C<-Debug> is the most common). See the
119 documentation for C<Catalyst.pm> to get details on other flags
120 (currently C<-Engine>, C<-Home>, and C<-Log>).
122 If you prefer, you can use the C<$c-E<gt>debug> method to enable debug
125 B<TIP>: Depending on your needs, it can be helpful to permanently
126 remove C<-Debug> from C<lib/MyApp.pm> and then use the C<-d> option
127 to C<script/myapp_server.pl> to re-enable it just for the development
128 server. We will not be using that approach in the tutorial, but feel
129 free to make use of it in your own projects.
133 L<Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader|Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader>
135 C<ConfigLoader> provides an automatic way to load configurable
136 parameters for your application from a central
137 L<Config::General|Config::General> file (versus having the values
138 hard-coded inside your Perl modules). Config::General uses syntax
139 very similar to Apache configuration files. We will see how to use
140 this feature of Catalyst during the authentication and authorization
141 sections (Part 5 and Part 6).
143 B<IMPORTANT NOTE:> If you are following along in Ubuntu 8.04 or
144 otherwise using a version of L<Catalyst::Devel|Catalyst::Devel> prior
145 to version 1.06, you need to be aware that Catalyst changed from a
146 default format of YAML to the more straightforward C<Config::General>
147 format. Because Catalyst has long supported both formats, this
148 tutorial will simply use a configuration file called C<myapp.conf>
149 instead of C<myapp.yml> and Catalyst will automatically use the new
150 format. Just be aware that earlier versions of Catalyst will still
151 create the C<myapp.yml> file and that you will need to B<remove
152 C<myapp.yml>> and create a new C<myapp.conf> file by hand, but
153 otherwise this transition is very painless. The default contents of
154 C<myapp.conf> should only consist of one line: C<name MyApp>. Also be
155 aware that you can continue to use any format supported by
156 L<Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader|Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader> and
157 L<Config::Any|Config::Any>, including YAML -- Catalyst will
158 automatically look for any of the supported configuration file
161 B<TIP>: This script can be useful for converting between configuration
164 perl -Ilib -e 'use MyApp; use Config::General;
165 Config::General->new->save_file("myapp.conf", MyApp->config);'
167 B<NOTE:> The default C<myapp.conf> should look like:
173 L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple|Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple>
175 C<Static::Simple> provides an easy method of serving static content such
176 as images and CSS files under the development server.
180 To modify the list of plugins, edit C<lib/MyApp.pm> (this file is
181 generally referred to as your I<application class>) and delete the line
184 use Catalyst qw/-Debug ConfigLoader Static::Simple/;
196 This tells Catalyst to start using one new plugin:
202 L<Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace|Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace>
204 Adds a stack trace to the standard Catalyst "debug screen" (this is the
205 screen Catalyst sends to your browser when an error occurs).
207 Note: L<StackTrace|Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace> output appears in your
208 browser, not in the console window from which you're running your
209 application, which is where logging output usually goes.
211 B<Note:> You will want to disable
212 L<StackTrace|Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace> before you put your
213 application into production, but it can be helpful during development.
217 Note that when specifying plugins on the C<use Catalyst> line, you can
218 omit C<Catalyst::Plugin::> from the name. Additionally, you can spread
219 the plugin names across multiple lines as shown here, or place them all
220 on one (or more) lines as with the default configuration.
223 =head1 CREATE A CATALYST CONTROLLER
225 As discussed earlier, controllers are where you write methods that
226 interact with user input. Typically, controller methods respond to
227 C<GET> and C<POST> messages from the user's web browser.
229 Use the Catalyst C<create> script to add a controller for book-related
232 $ script/myapp_create.pl controller Books
233 exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Controller"
234 exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
235 created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm"
236 created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t/controller_Books.t"
238 Then edit C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm> and add the following method
243 Fetch all book objects and pass to books/list.tt2 in stash to be displayed
248 # Retrieve the usual Perl OO '$self' for this object. $c is the Catalyst
249 # 'Context' that's used to 'glue together' the various components
250 # that make up the application
253 # Retrieve all of the book records as book model objects and store in the
254 # stash where they can be accessed by the TT template
255 $c->stash->{books} = [$c->model('DB::Books')->all];
257 # Set the TT template to use. You will almost always want to do this
258 # in your action methods (action methods respond to user input in
260 $c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';
263 B<Note:> This won't actually work yet since you haven't set up your
264 model yet. We will be covering the model soon.
266 B<Note:> Programmers experienced with object-oriented Perl should
267 recognize C<$self> as a reference to the object where this method was
268 called. On the other hand, C<$c> will be new to many Perl programmers
269 who have not used Catalyst before (it's sometimes written as
270 C<$context>). The Context object is automatically passed to all
271 Catalyst components. It is used to pass information between
272 components and provide access to Catalyst and plugin functionality.
274 B<TIP>: You may see the C<$c-E<gt>model('DB::Book')> used above
275 written as C<$c-E<gt>model('DB')-E<gt>resultset('Book')>. The two
278 B<Note:> Catalyst actions are regular Perl methods, but they make use
279 of Nicholas Clark's C<attributes> module (that's the C<: Local> next
280 to the C<sub list> in the code above) to provide additional
281 information to the Catalyst dispatcher logic. Many newer Catalyst
282 applications are switching to the use of "Literal" C<:Path> actions
283 and C<Args> attribute in lieu of C<: Local> and C<: Private>. For
284 example, C<sub any_method :Path :Args(0)> can be used instead of
285 C<sub index :Private> (because no path was supplied to C<Path> it
286 matches the "empty" URL in the namespace of that module... the same
287 thing C<sub index> would do) or C<sub list :Path('list') :Args(0)>
288 could be used instead of the C<sub list : Local> above (the C<list>
289 argument to C<Path> would make it match on the URL C<list> under
290 C<books>, the namespace of the current module). See "Action Types" in
291 L<Catalyst::Manual::Intro|Catalyst::Manual::Intro> as well as Part 5
292 of this tutorial (Authentication) for additional information. Another
293 popular but more advanced feature is C<Chained> actions that allow a
294 single URL to "chain together" multiple action method calls, each with
295 an appropriate number of arguments (see
296 L<Catalyst::DispatchType::Chained|Catalyst::DispatchType::Chained>
300 =head1 CATALYST VIEWS
302 As mentioned in Part 2 of the tutorial, views are where you render
303 output, typically for display in the user's web browser, but also
304 possibly using other display output- generation systems. As with
305 virtually every aspect of Catalyst, options abound when it comes to
306 the specific view technology you adopt inside your application.
307 However, most Catalyst applications use the Template Toolkit, known as
308 TT (for more information on TT, see
309 L<http://www.template-toolkit.org>). Other popular view technologies
310 include Mason (L<http://www.masonhq.com> and
311 L<http://www.masonbook.com>) and L<HTML::Template>
312 (L<http://html-template.sourceforge.net>).
314 =head2 Create a Catalyst View Using C<TTSite>
316 When using TT for the Catalyst view, there are two main helper scripts:
322 L<Catalyst::Helper::View::TT|Catalyst::Helper::View::TT>
326 L<Catalyst::Helper::View::TTSite|Catalyst::Helper::View::TTSite>
330 Both are similar, but C<TT> merely creates the C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>
331 file and leaves the creation of any hierarchical template organization
332 entirely up to you. (It also creates a C<t/view_TT.t> file for testing;
333 test cases will be discussed in Part 8). The C<TTSite> helper creates a
334 modular and hierarchical view layout with separate Template Toolkit (TT)
335 files for common header and footer information, configuration values, a
336 CSS stylesheet, and more.
338 While TTSite is useful to bootstrap a project, we recommend that
339 unless you know what you're doing or want to pretty much use the
340 supplied templates as is, that you use the plain Template Toolkit view
341 when starting a project from scratch. This is because TTSite can be
342 tricky to customize. Additionally TT contains constructs that you
343 need to learn yourself if you're going to be a serious user of TT.
344 Our experience suggests that you're better off learning these from
345 scratch. We use TTSite here precisely because it is useful for
346 bootstrap/prototype purposes.
348 Enter the following command to enable the C<TTSite> style of view
349 rendering for this tutorial:
351 $ script/myapp_create.pl view TT TTSite
352 exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/View"
353 exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
354 created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm"
355 created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../root/lib"
357 created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../root/src/ttsite.css"
359 This puts a number of files in the C<root/lib> and C<root/src>
360 directories that can be used to customize the look and feel of your
361 application. Also take a look at C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm> for config
362 values set by the C<TTSite> helper.
364 B<TIP>: When troubleshooting TT it can be helpful to enable variable
365 C<DEBUG> options. You can do this in a Catalyst environment by adding
366 a C<DEBUG> line to the C<__PACKAGE__->config> declaration in
367 C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>:
369 __PACKAGE__->config({
375 B<Note:> C<__PACKAGE__> is just a shorthand way of referencing the name
376 of the package where it is used. Therefore, in C<TT.pm>,
377 C<__PACKAGE__> is equivalent to C<TT>.
379 There are a variety of options you can use, such as 'undef', 'all',
380 'service', 'context', 'parser' and 'provider'. See
381 L<Template::Constants> for more information (remove the C<DEBUG_>
382 portion of the name shown in the TT docs and convert to lower case
383 for use inside Catalyst).
385 B<NOTE:> B<Please be sure to disable TT debug options before
386 continuing the tutorial> (especially the 'undef' option -- leaving
387 this enabled will conflict with several of the conventions used
388 by this tutorial and TTSite to leave some variables undefined
392 =head2 Globally Customize Every View
394 When using TTSite, files in the subdirectories of C<root/lib> can be
395 used to make changes that will appear in every view. For example, to
396 display optional status and error messages in every view, edit
397 C<root/lib/site/layout>, updating it to match the following (the two HTML
398 C<span> elements are new):
400 <div id="header">[% PROCESS site/header %]</div>
403 <span class="message">[% status_msg %]</span>
404 <span class="error">[% error_msg %]</span>
408 <div id="footer">[% PROCESS site/footer %]</div>
410 If we set either message in the Catalyst stash (e.g.,
411 C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{status_msg} = 'Request was successful!'>) it will
412 be displayed whenever any view used by that request is rendered. The
413 C<message> and C<error> CSS styles are automatically defined in
414 C<root/src/ttsite.css> and can be customized to suit your needs.
416 B<Note:> The Catalyst stash only lasts for a single HTTP request. If
417 you need to retain information across requests you can use
418 L<Catalyst::Plugin::Session|Catalyst::Plugin::Session> (we will use
419 Catalyst sessions in the Authentication part of the tutorial).
422 =head2 Create a TT Template Page
424 To add a new page of content to the TTSite view hierarchy, just create a
425 new C<.tt2> file in C<root/src>. Only include HTML markup that goes
426 inside the HTML <body> and </body> tags, TTSite will use the contents of
427 C<root/lib/site> to add the top and bottom.
429 First create a directory for book-related TT templates:
431 $ mkdir root/src/books
433 Then create C<root/src/books/list.tt2> in your editor and enter:
435 [% # This is a TT comment. The '-' at the end "chomps" the newline. You won't -%]
436 [% # see this "chomping" in your browser because HTML ignores blank lines, but -%]
437 [% # it WILL eliminate a blank line if you view the HTML source. It's purely -%]
438 [%- # optional, but both the beginning and the ending TT tags support chomping. -%]
440 [% # Provide a title to root/lib/site/header -%]
441 [% META title = 'Book List' -%]
444 <tr><th>Title</th><th>Rating</th><th>Author(s)</th></tr>
445 [% # Display each book in a table row %]
446 [% FOREACH book IN books -%]
448 <td>[% book.title %]</td>
449 <td>[% book.rating %]</td>
454 As indicated by the inline comments above, the C<META title> line uses
455 TT's META feature to provide a title to C<root/lib/site/header>.
456 Meanwhile, the C<FOREACH> loop iterates through each C<book> model
457 object and prints the C<title> and C<rating> fields.
459 If you are new to TT, the C<[%> and C<%]> tags are used to delimit TT
460 code. TT supports a wide variety of directives for "calling" other
461 files, looping, conditional logic, etc. In general, TT simplifies the
462 usual range of Perl operators down to the single dot (C<.>) operator.
463 This applies to operations as diverse as method calls, hash lookups, and
464 list index values (see
465 L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Template::Manual::Variables>
466 for details and examples). In addition to the usual C<Template> module
467 Pod documentation, you can access the TT manual at
468 L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Template::Manual>.
470 B<NOTE:> The C<TTSite> helper creates several TT files using an
471 extension of C<.tt2>. Most other Catalyst and TT examples use an
472 extension of C<.tt>. You can use either extension (or no extension at
473 all) with TTSite and TT, just be sure to use the appropriate extension
474 for both the file itself I<and> the C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template} =
475 ...> line in your controller. This document will use C<.tt2> for
476 consistency with the files already created by the C<TTSite> helper.
479 =head1 CREATE A SQLITE DATABASE
481 In this step, we make a text file with the required SQL commands to
482 create a database table and load some sample data. Open C<myapp01.sql>
483 in your editor and enter:
486 -- Create a very simple database to hold book and author information
489 id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
493 -- 'book_authors' is a many-to-many join table between books & authors
494 CREATE TABLE book_authors (
497 PRIMARY KEY (book_id, author_id)
499 CREATE TABLE authors (
500 id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
505 --- Load some sample data
507 INSERT INTO books VALUES (1, 'CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide', 5);
508 INSERT INTO books VALUES (2, 'TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1', 5);
509 INSERT INTO books VALUES (3, 'Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1', 4);
510 INSERT INTO books VALUES (4, 'Perl Cookbook', 5);
511 INSERT INTO books VALUES (5, 'Designing with Web Standards', 5);
512 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (1, 'Greg', 'Bastien');
513 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (2, 'Sara', 'Nasseh');
514 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (3, 'Christian', 'Degu');
515 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (4, 'Richard', 'Stevens');
516 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (5, 'Douglas', 'Comer');
517 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (6, 'Tom', 'Christiansen');
518 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (7, 'Nathan', 'Torkington');
519 INSERT INTO authors VALUES (8, 'Jeffrey', 'Zeldman');
520 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 1);
521 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 2);
522 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 3);
523 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (2, 4);
524 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (3, 5);
525 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (4, 6);
526 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (4, 7);
527 INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (5, 8);
529 B<TIP>: See Appendix 1 for tips on removing the leading spaces when
530 cutting and pasting example code from POD-based documents.
532 Then use the following command to build a C<myapp.db> SQLite database:
534 $ sqlite3 myapp.db < myapp01.sql
536 If you need to create the database more than once, you probably want to
537 issue the C<rm myapp.db> command to delete the database before you use
538 the C<sqlite3 myapp.db < myapp01.sql> command.
540 Once the C<myapp.db> database file has been created and initialized, you
541 can use the SQLite command line environment to do a quick dump of the
546 Enter ".help" for instructions
547 sqlite> select * from books;
548 1|CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide|5
549 2|TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1|5
550 3|Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1|4
552 5|Designing with Web Standards|5
558 $ sqlite3 myapp.db "select * from books"
559 1|CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide|5
560 2|TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1|5
561 3|Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1|4
563 5|Designing with Web Standards|5
565 As with most other SQL tools, if you are using the full "interactive"
566 environment you need to terminate your SQL commands with a ";" (it's not
567 required if you do a single SQL statement on the command line). Use
568 ".q" to exit from SQLite from the SQLite interactive mode and return to
569 your OS command prompt.
572 =head1 DATABASE ACCESS WITH C<DBIx::Class>
574 Catalyst can be used with virtually any form of persistent datastore
575 available via Perl. For example,
576 L<Catalyst::Model::DBI|Catalyst::Model::DBI> can be used to
577 easily access databases through the traditional Perl C<DBI> interface.
578 However, most Catalyst applications use some form of ORM technology to
579 automatically create and save model objects as they are used. Although
580 Tony Bowden's L<Class::DBI|Class::DBI> has been a popular choice
581 in the past, Matt Trout's L<DBIx::Class|DBIx::Class> (abbreviated
582 as "DBIC") has rapidly emerged as the Perl-based ORM technology of choice.
583 Most new Catalyst applications rely on DBIC, as will this tutorial.
585 =head2 Create a dynamic DBIC Model
587 Use the C<create=dynamic> model helper option to build a model that
588 dynamically reads your database structure every time the application
591 $ script/myapp_create.pl model DB DBIC::Schema MyApp::Schema create=dynamic dbi:SQLite:myapp.db
592 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model"
593 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../t"
594 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp"
595 created "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Schema.pm"
596 created "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model/DB.pm"
597 created "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../t/model_DB.t"
600 C<DB> is the name of the model class to be created by the helper in
601 C<lib/MyApp/Model> (Catalyst has a separate directory under C<lib/MyApp>
602 for each of the three parts of MVC: C<Model>, C<View>, and C<Controller>).
603 C<DBIC::Schema> is the type of the model to create.
604 C<MyApp::Schema> is the name of the DBIC schema file written to
605 C<lib/MyApp/Schema.pm>. Because we specified C<create=dynamic>
606 to the helper, it use L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> to dynamically load
607 the schema information from the database every time the application
608 starts. And finally, C<dbi:SQLite:myapp.db> is the standard DBI connect
609 string for use with SQLite.
611 B<NOTE:> Although the C<create=dynamic> option to the DBIC helper
612 makes for a nifty demonstration, is only really suitable for very
613 small applications. After this demonstration, you should almost always
614 use the C<create=static> option that we switch to below.
617 =head1 RUN THE APPLICATION
619 First, let's enable an environment variable option that causes
620 DBIx::Class to dump the SQL statements it's using to access the database
621 (this option can provide extremely helpful troubleshooting information):
623 $ export DBIC_TRACE=1
625 This assumes you are using BASH as your shell -- adjust accordingly if
626 you are using a different shell (for example, under tcsh, use
627 C<setenv DBIC_TRACE 1>).
629 B<NOTE:> You can also set this in your code using
630 C<$class-E<gt>storage-E<gt>debug(1);>. See
631 L<DBIx::Class::Manual::Troubleshooting> for details (including options
632 to log to file instead of displaying to the Catalyst development server
635 Then run the Catalyst "demo server" script:
637 $ script/myapp_server.pl
639 Your development server log output should display something like:
641 $script/myapp_server.pl
642 [debug] Debug messages enabled
643 [debug] Loaded plugins:
644 .----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
645 | Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader 0.17 |
646 | Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace 0.06 |
647 | Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple 0.20 |
648 '----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
650 [debug] Loaded dispatcher "Catalyst::Dispatcher"
651 [debug] Loaded engine "Catalyst::Engine::HTTP"
652 [debug] Found home "/home/me/MyApp"
653 [debug] Loaded Config "/home/me/MyApp/myapp.conf"
654 [debug] Loaded components:
655 .-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------.
657 +-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
658 | MyApp::Controller::Books | instance |
659 | MyApp::Controller::Root | instance |
660 | MyApp::Model::DB | instance |
661 | MyApp::Model::DB::Authors | class |
662 | MyApp::Model::DB::BookAuthors | class |
663 | MyApp::Model::DB::Books | class |
664 | MyApp::View::TT | instance |
665 '-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------'
667 [debug] Loaded Private actions:
668 .----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------.
669 | Private | Class | Method |
670 +----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+
671 | /default | MyApp::Controller::Root | default |
672 | /end | MyApp::Controller::Root | end |
673 | /books/index | MyApp::Controller::Books | index |
674 | /books/list | MyApp::Controller::Books | list |
675 '----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------'
677 [debug] Loaded Path actions:
678 .-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------.
680 +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
681 | /books/list | /books/list |
682 '-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------'
684 [info] MyApp powered by Catalyst 5.7011
685 You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000
687 B<NOTE:> Be sure you run the C<script/myapp_server.pl> command from
688 the 'base' directory of your application, not inside the C<script>
689 directory itself or it will not be able to locate the C<myapp.db>
690 database file. You can use a fully qualified or a relative path to
691 locate the database file, but we did not specify that when we ran the
692 model helper earlier.
694 Some things you should note in the output above:
700 Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema dynamically created three model classes,
701 one to represent each of the three tables in our database
702 (C<MyApp::Model::DB::Authors>, C<MyApp::Model::DB::BookAuthors>,
703 and C<MyApp::Model::DB::Books>).
707 The "list" action in our Books controller showed up with a path of
712 Point your browser to L<http://localhost:3000> and you should still get
713 the Catalyst welcome page.
715 Next, to view the book list, change the URL in your browser to
716 L<http://localhost:3000/books/list>. You should get a list of the five
717 books loaded by the C<myapp01.sql> script above, with TTSite providing
718 the formatting for the very simple output we generated in our template.
719 The rating for each book should appear on each row.
721 Also notice in the output of the C<script/myapp_server.pl> that DBIC
722 used the following SQL to retrieve the data:
724 SELECT me.id, me.title, me.rating FROM books me
726 because we enabled DBIC_TRACE.
728 You now have the beginnings of a simple but workable web application.
729 Continue on to future sections and we will develop the application
733 =head1 A STATIC DATABASE MODEL WITH C<DBIx::Class>
735 =head2 Create Static DBIC Schema Files
737 Unlike the previous section where we had DBIC automatically discover the
738 structure of the database every time the application started, here we
739 will use static schema files for more control. This is typical of most
740 "real world" applications.
742 One option would be to create a separate schema file for each table in
743 the database, however, lets use the same L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader>
744 used earlier with C<create=dynamic> to build the static files for us.
745 First, lets remove the schema file created earlier:
747 $ rm lib/MyApp/Schema.pm
749 Now regenerate the schema using the C<create=static> option:
751 $ script/myapp_create.pl model DB DBIC::Schema MyApp::Schema create=static dbi:SQLite:myapp.db
752 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model"
753 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../t"
754 Dumping manual schema for MyApp::Schema to directory /home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib ...
755 Schema dump completed.
756 exists "/home/kclark/dev/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model/DB.pm"
758 We could have also deleted C<lib/MyApp/Model/DB.pm>, but it would
759 have regenerated the same file (note the C<exists> in the output above).
760 If you take a look at C<lib/MyApp/Model/DB.pm>, it simply contains
761 a reference to the actual schema file in C<lib/MyApp/Schema.pm>
762 along with the database connect string.
764 If you look in the C<lib/MyApp/Schema> directory, you will find that
765 C<DB.pm> is no longer using L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> as its
766 base class (L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> is only being used by the
767 helper to load the schema once and then create the static files for us)
768 and that it only contains a call to the C<load_classes> method. You
769 will also find that C<lib/MyApp/Schema> contains a C<Schema>
770 subdirectory, with one file inside this directory for each of the tables
771 in our simple database (C<Authors.pm>, C<BookAuthors.pm>, and
772 C<Books.pm>). These three files were created based on the information
773 found by L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> as the helper ran.
775 The idea with all of the files created under C<lib/MyApp/Schema> by the
776 C<create=static> option is to only edit the files below the C<# DO NOT
777 MODIFY THIS OR ANYTHING ABOVE!> warning. If you place all of your
778 changes below that point in the file, you can regenerate the
779 auto-generated information at the top of each file should your database
780 structure get updated.
782 Also note the "flow" of the model information across the various files
783 and directories. Catalyst will initially load the model from
784 C<lib/MyApp/Model/DB.pm>. This file contains a reference to
785 C<lib/MyApp/Schema.pm>, so that file is loaded next. Finally,
786 the call to C<load_classes> in that file will load each of the
787 table-specific "results source" files from the C<lib/MyApp/Schema>
788 subdirectory. These three table-specific DBIC schema files will then be
789 used to create three table-specific Catalyst models every time the
790 application starts (you can see these three model files listed in
791 the debug output generated when you launch the application).
794 =head2 Updating the Generated DBIC Schema Files
797 Let's manually add some relationship information to the auto-generated
798 schema files. First edit C<lib/MyApp/Schema/Books.pm> and
799 add the following text below the C<# You can replace this text...>
808 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
809 # 2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
810 # 3) Column name in *foreign* table
811 __PACKAGE__->has_many(book_authors => 'MyApp::Schema::BookAuthors', 'book_id');
815 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
816 # 2) Name of has_many() relationship this many_to_many() is shortcut for
817 # 3) Name of belongs_to() relationship in model class of has_many() above
818 # You must already have the has_many() defined to use a many_to_many().
819 __PACKAGE__->many_to_many(authors => 'book_authors', 'author');
822 B<Note:> Be careful to put this code I<above> the C<1;> at the end of the
823 file. As with any Perl package, we need to end the last line with
824 a statement that evaluates to C<true>. This is customarily done with
825 C<1;> on a line by itself.
827 This code defines both a C<has_many> and a C<many_to_many> relationship.
828 The C<many_to_many> relationship is optional, but it makes it easier to
829 map a book to its collection of authors. Without it, we would have to
830 "walk" though the C<book_authors> table as in C<$book-E<gt>book_authors-
831 E<gt>first-E<gt>author-E<gt>last_name> (we will see examples on how to
832 use DBIC objects in your code soon, but note that because C<$book-
833 E<gt>book_authors> can return multiple authors, we have to use C<first>
834 to display a single author). C<many_to_many> allows us to use the
835 shorter C<$book-E<gt>authors-E<gt>first-E<gt>last_name>. Note that you
836 cannot define a C<many_to_many> relationship without also having the
837 C<has_many> relationship in place.
839 Then edit C<lib/MyApp/Schema/Authors.pm> and add relationship
840 information as follows (again, be careful to put in above the C<1;> but
841 below the C<# DO NOT MODIFY THIS OR ANYTHING ABOVE!> comment):
849 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
850 # 2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
851 # 3) Column name in *foreign* table
852 __PACKAGE__->has_many(book_author => 'MyApp::Schema::BookAuthors', 'author_id');
856 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
857 # 2) Name of has_many() relationship this many_to_many() is shortcut for
858 # 3) Name of belongs_to() relationship in model class of has_many() above
859 # You must already have the has_many() defined to use a many_to_many().
860 __PACKAGE__->many_to_many(books => 'book_author', 'book');
862 Finally, do the same for the "join table,"
863 C<lib/MyApp/Schema/BookAuthors.pm>:
871 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
872 # 2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
873 # 3) Column name in *this* table
874 __PACKAGE__->belongs_to(book => 'MyApp::Schema::Books', 'book_id');
878 # 1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
879 # 2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
880 # 3) Column name in *this* table
881 __PACKAGE__->belongs_to(author => 'MyApp::Schema::Authors', 'author_id');
884 =head1 RUN THE APPLICATION
886 Run the Catalyst "demo server" script with the C<DBIC_TRACE> option
887 (it might still be enabled from earlier in the tutorial, but here
888 is an alternate way to specify the option just in case):
890 $ DBIC_TRACE=1 script/myapp_server.pl
892 Make sure that the application loads correctly and that you see the
893 three dynamically created model class (one for each of the
894 table-specific schema classes we created).
896 Then hit the URL L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> and be sure that
897 the book list is displayed.
900 =head1 RUNNING THE APPLICATION FROM THE COMMAND LINE
902 In some situations, it can be useful to run your application and
903 display a page without using a browser. Catalyst lets you do this
904 using the C<scripts/myapp_test.pl> script. Just supply the URL you
905 wish to display and it will run that request through the normal
906 controller dispatch logic and use the appropriate view to render the
907 output (obviously, complex pages may dump a lot of text to your
908 terminal window). For example, if you type:
910 $ script/myapp_test.pl "/books/list"
912 You should get the same text as if you visited
913 L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> with the normal development server
914 and asked your browser to view the page source.
917 =head1 UPDATING THE VIEW
919 Let's add a new column to our book list page that takes advantage of
920 the relationship information we manually added to our schema files
921 in the previous section. Edit C<root/src/books/list.tt2> add add the
922 following code below the existing table cell that contains
923 C<book.rating> (IOW, add a new table cell below the existing two
927 [% # First initialize a TT variable to hold a list. Then use a TT FOREACH -%]
928 [% # loop in 'side effect notation' to load just the last names of the -%]
929 [% # authors into the list. Note that the 'push' TT vmethod does not print -%]
930 [% # a value, so nothing will be printed here. But, if you have something -%]
931 [% # in TT that does return a method and you don't want it printed, you -%]
932 [% # can: 1) assign it to a bogus value, or 2) use the CALL keyword to -%]
933 [% # call it and discard the return value. -%]
935 tt_authors.push(author.last_name) FOREACH author = book.authors %]
936 [% # Now use a TT 'virtual method' to display the author count in parens -%]
937 [% # Note the use of the TT filter "| html" to escape dangerous characters -%]
938 ([% tt_authors.size | html %])
939 [% # Use another TT vmethod to join & print the names & comma separators -%]
940 [% tt_authors.join(', ') | html %]
943 Then hit C<Ctrl+R> in your browser (note that you don't need to reload
944 the development server or use the C<-r> option when updating TT
945 templates) and you should now see the the number of authors each book
946 along with a comma-separated list of the author's last names.
948 If you are still running the development server with C<DBIC_TRACE>
949 enabled, you should also now see five more C<SELECT> statements in the
950 debug output (one for each book as the authors are being retrieved by
953 Also note that we are using "| html", a type of TT filter, to escape
954 characters such as E<lt> and E<gt> to < and > and avoid various
955 types of dangerous hacks against your application. In a real
956 application, you would probably want to put "| html" at the end of
957 every field where a user has control over the information that can
958 appear in that field (and can therefore inject markup or code if you
959 don't "neutralize" those fields). In addition to "| html", Template
960 Toolkit has a variety of other useful filters that can found in the
961 documentation for L<Template::Filters|Template::Filters>.
964 =head2 Using C<RenderView> for the Default View
966 B<NOTE: The rest of this part of the tutorial is optional. You can
967 skip to Part 4, L<Basic CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::BasicCRUD>,
970 Once your controller logic has processed the request from a user, it
971 forwards processing to your view in order to generate the appropriate
972 response output. Catalyst uses
973 L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> by
974 default to automatically performs this operation. If you look in
975 C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Root.pm>, you should see the empty
976 definition for the C<sub end> method:
978 sub end : ActionClass('RenderView') {}
980 The following bullet points provide a quick overview of the
981 C<RenderView> process:
987 C<Root.pm> is designed to hold application-wide logic.
991 At the end of a given user request, Catalyst will call the most specific
992 C<end> method that's appropriate. For example, if the controller for a
993 request has an C<end> method defined, it will be called. However, if
994 the controller does not define a controller-specific C<end> method, the
995 "global" C<end> method in C<Root.pm> will be called.
999 Because the definition includes an C<ActionClass> attribute, the
1000 L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> logic
1001 will be executed B<after> any code inside the definition of C<sub end>
1002 is run. See L<Catalyst::Manual::Actions|Catalyst::Manual::Actions>
1003 for more information on C<ActionClass>.
1007 Because C<sub end> is empty, this effectively just runs the default
1008 logic in C<RenderView>. However, you can easily extend the
1009 C<RenderView> logic by adding your own code inside the empty method body
1010 (C<{}>) created by the Catalyst Helpers when we first ran the
1011 C<catalyst.pl> to initialize our application. See
1012 L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> for more
1013 detailed information on how to extended C<RenderView> in C<sub end>.
1018 =head2 Using The Default Template Name
1020 By default, C<Catalyst::View::TT> will look for a template that uses the
1021 same name as your controller action, allowing you to save the step of
1022 manually specifying the template name in each action. For example, this
1023 would allow us to remove the
1024 C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template} = 'books/list.tt2';> line of our
1025 C<list> action in the Books controller. Open
1026 C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm> in your editor and comment out this line
1027 to match the following (only the C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template}> line
1032 Fetch all book objects and pass to books/list.tt2 in stash to be displayed
1037 # Retrieve the usual Perl OO '$self' for this object. $c is the Catalyst
1038 # 'Context' that's used to 'glue together' the various components
1039 # that make up the application
1040 my ($self, $c) = @_;
1042 # Retrieve all of the book records as book model objects and store in the
1043 # stash where they can be accessed by the TT template
1044 $c->stash->{books} = [$c->model('DB::Books')->all];
1046 # Set the TT template to use. You will almost always want to do this
1047 # in your action methods (actions methods respond to user input in
1048 # your controllers).
1049 #$c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';
1052 C<Catalyst::View::TT> defaults to looking for a template with no
1053 extension. In our case, we need to override this to look for an
1054 extension of C<.tt2>. Open C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm> and add the
1055 C<TEMPLATE_EXTENSION> definition as follows:
1057 __PACKAGE__->config({
1058 CATALYST_VAR => 'Catalyst',
1060 MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'src' ),
1061 MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'lib' )
1063 PRE_PROCESS => 'config/main',
1064 WRAPPER => 'site/wrapper',
1065 ERROR => 'error.tt2',
1067 TEMPLATE_EXTENSION => '.tt2',
1070 You should now be able to restart the development server as per the
1071 previous section and access the L<http://localhost:3000/books/list>
1074 B<NOTE:> Please note that if you use the default template technique,
1075 you will B<not> be able to use either the C<$c-E<gt>forward> or
1076 the C<$c-E<gt>detach> mechanisms (these are discussed in Part 2 and
1077 Part 9 of the Tutorial).
1080 =head2 Return To A Manually-Specified Template
1082 In order to be able to use C<$c-E<gt>forward> and C<$c-E<gt>detach>
1083 later in the tutorial, you should remove the comment from the
1084 statement in C<sub list> in C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm>:
1086 $c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';
1088 Then delete the C<TEMPLATE_EXTENSION> line in
1089 C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>.
1091 You should then be able to restart the development server and
1092 access L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> in the same manner as
1093 with earlier sections.
1098 Kennedy Clark, C<hkclark@gmail.com>
1100 Please report any errors, issues or suggestions to the author. The
1101 most recent version of the Catalyst Tutorial can be found at
1102 L<http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/trunk/Catalyst-Manual/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial/>.
1104 Copyright 2006-2008, Kennedy Clark, under Creative Commons License
1105 (L<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/>).