-
=head1 NAME
Catalyst::Manual::Cookbook - Cooking with Catalyst
=head1 RECIPES
-=head2 Force debug screen
+=head1 Basics
-You can force Catalyst to display the debug screen at the end of the
-request by placing a C<die()> call in the C<end> action.
+These recipes cover some basic stuff that is worth knowing for catalyst developers.
- sub end : Private {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- die "forced debug";
- }
+=head2 Delivering a Custom Error Page
+
+By default, Catalyst will display its own error page whenever it
+encounters an error in your application. When running under C<-Debug>
+mode, the error page is a useful screen including the error message and
+L<Data::Dump> output of the relevant parts of the C<$c> context object.
+When not in C<-Debug>, users see a simple "Please come back later" screen.
+
+To use a custom error page, use a special C<end> method to short-circuit
+the error processing. The following is an example; you might want to
+adjust it further depending on the needs of your application (for
+example, any calls to C<fillform> will probably need to go into this
+C<end> method; see L<Catalyst::Plugin::FillInForm>).
+
+ sub end : Private {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ if ( scalar @{ $c->error } ) {
+ $c->stash->{errors} = $c->error;
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'errors.tt';
+ $c->forward('MyApp::View::TT');
+ $c->error(0);
+ }
+
+ return 1 if $c->response->status =~ /^3\d\d$/;
+ return 1 if $c->response->body;
-If you're tired of removing and adding this all the time, you can add a
-condition in the C<end> action. For example:
+ unless ( $c->response->content_type ) {
+ $c->response->content_type('text/html; charset=utf-8');
+ }
- sub end : Private {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- die "forced debug" if $c->req->params->{dump_info};
- }
+ $c->forward('MyApp::View::TT');
+ }
-Then just add to your query string C<&dump_info=1> (or if there's no
-query string for the request, add C<?dump_info=1> to the end of the URL)
-to force debug output. This feature is included in
-L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView> (formerly
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::DefaultEnd>).
+You can manually set errors in your code to trigger this page by calling
+ $c->error( 'You broke me!' );
=head2 Disable statistics
modifying your application scripts. Just set C<CATALYST_DEBUG> or
C<E<lt>MYAPPE<gt>_DEBUG> to a true value.
-=head2 File uploads
+=head2 Sessions
-=head3 Single file upload with Catalyst
+When you have your users identified, you will want to somehow remember that
+fact, to save them from having to identify themselves for every single
+page. One way to do this is to send the username and password parameters in
+every single page, but that's ugly, and won't work for static pages.
-To implement uploads in Catalyst, you need to have a HTML form similar to
-this:
+Sessions are a method of saving data related to some transaction, and giving
+the whole collection a single ID. This ID is then given to the user to return
+to us on every page they visit while logged in. The usual way to do this is
+using a browser cookie.
- <form action="/upload" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
- <input type="hidden" name="form_submit" value="yes">
- <input type="file" name="my_file">
- <input type="submit" value="Send">
- </form>
+Catalyst uses two types of plugins to represent sessions:
-It's very important not to forget C<enctype="multipart/form-data"> in
-the form.
+=head3 State
-Catalyst Controller module 'upload' action:
+A State module is used to keep track of the state of the session between the
+users browser, and your application.
- sub upload : Global {
- my ($self, $c) = @_;
+A common example is the Cookie state module, which sends the browser a cookie
+containing the session ID. It will use default value for the cookie name and
+domain, so will "just work" when used.
- if ( $c->request->parameters->{form_submit} eq 'yes' ) {
+=head3 Store
- if ( my $upload = $c->request->upload('my_file') ) {
+A Store module is used to hold all the data relating to your session, for
+example the users ID, or the items for their shopping cart. You can store data
+in memory (FastMmap), in a file (File) or in a database (DBI).
- my $filename = $upload->filename;
- my $target = "/tmp/upload/$filename";
+=head3 Authentication magic
- unless ( $upload->link_to($target) || $upload->copy_to($target) ) {
- die( "Failed to copy '$filename' to '$target': $!" );
- }
- }
- }
+If you have included the session modules in your application, the
+Authentication modules will automagically use your session to save and
+retrieve the user data for you.
- $c->stash->{template} = 'file_upload.html';
- }
+=head3 Using a session
-=head3 Multiple file upload with Catalyst
+Once the session modules are loaded, the session is available as C<<
+$c->session >>, and can be writen to and read from as a simple hash reference.
-Code for uploading multiple files from one form needs a few changes:
+=head3 EXAMPLE
-The form should have this basic structure:
+ use Catalyst qw/
+ Session
+ Session::Store::FastMmap
+ Session::State::Cookie
+ /;
- <form action="/upload" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
- <input type="hidden" name="form_submit" value="yes">
- <input type="file" name="file1" size="50"><br>
- <input type="file" name="file2" size="50"><br>
- <input type="file" name="file3" size="50"><br>
- <input type="submit" value="Send">
- </form>
-And in the controller:
+ ## Write data into the session
- sub upload : Local {
- my ($self, $c) = @_;
+ sub add_item : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- if ( $c->request->parameters->{form_submit} eq 'yes' ) {
+ my $item_id = $c->req->param("item");
- for my $field ( $c->req->upload ) {
+ push @{ $c->session->{items} }, $item_id;
- my $upload = $c->req->upload($field);
- my $filename = $upload->filename;
- my $target = "/tmp/upload/$filename";
+ }
- unless ( $upload->link_to($target) || $upload->copy_to($target) ) {
- die( "Failed to copy '$filename' to '$target': $!" );
- }
- }
- }
+ ## A page later we retrieve the data from the session:
- $c->stash->{template} = 'file_upload.html';
- }
+ sub get_items : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-C<for my $field ($c-E<gt>req->upload)> loops automatically over all file
-input fields and gets input names. After that is basic file saving code,
-just like in single file upload.
+ $c->stash->{items_to_display} = $c->session->{items};
-Notice: C<die>ing might not be what you want to do, when an error
-occurs, but it works as an example. A better idea would be to store
-error C<$!> in $c->stash->{error} and show a custom error template
-displaying this message.
+ }
-For more information about uploads and usable methods look at
-L<Catalyst::Request::Upload> and L<Catalyst::Request>.
+
+=head3 More information
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session>
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-Cookie>
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-URI>
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-FastMmap>
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-File>
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-DBI>
+
+=head2 Configure your application
+
+You configure your application with the C<config> method in your
+application class. This can be hard-coded, or brought in from a
+separate configuration file.
+
+=head3 Using YAML
+
+YAML is a method for creating flexible and readable configuration
+files. It's a great way to keep your Catalyst application configuration
+in one easy-to-understand location.
+
+In your application class (e.g. C<lib/MyApp.pm>):
+
+ use YAML;
+ # application setup
+ __PACKAGE__->config( YAML::LoadFile(__PACKAGE__->config->{'home'} . '/myapp.yml') );
+ __PACKAGE__->setup;
+
+Now create C<myapp.yml> in your application home:
+
+ --- #YAML:1.0
+ # DO NOT USE TABS FOR INDENTATION OR label/value SEPARATION!!!
+ name: MyApp
+
+ # session; perldoc Catalyst::Plugin::Session::FastMmap
+ session:
+ expires: '3600'
+ rewrite: '0'
+ storage: '/tmp/myapp.session'
+
+ # emails; perldoc Catalyst::Plugin::Email
+ # this passes options as an array :(
+ email:
+ - SMTP
+ - localhost
+
+This is equivalent to:
+
+ # configure base package
+ __PACKAGE__->config( name => MyApp );
+ # configure authentication
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication} = {
+ user_class => 'MyApp::Model::MyDB::Customer',
+ ...
+ };
+ # configure sessions
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{session} = {
+ expires => 3600,
+ ...
+ };
+ # configure email sending
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{email} = [qw/SMTP localhost/];
+
+See also L<YAML>.
+
+=head1 Skipping your VCS's directories
+
+Catalyst uses Module::Pluggable to load Models, Views and Controllers.
+Module::Pluggable will scan through all directories and load modules
+it finds. Sometimes you might want to skip some of these directories,
+for example when your version control system makes a subdirectory with
+meta-information in every version-controlled directory. While
+Catalyst skips subversion and CVS directories already, there are other
+source control systems. Here is the configuration you need to add
+their directories to the list to skip.
+
+You can make catalyst skip these directories using the Catalyst config:
+
+ # Configure the application
+ __PACKAGE__->config(
+ name => 'MyApp',
+ setup_components => { except => qr/SCCS/ },
+ );
+
+See the Module::Pluggable manual page for more information on B<except>
+and other options.
+
+=head1 Users and Access Control
+
+Most multiuser, and some single user web applications require that
+users identify themselves, and the application is often required to
+define those roles. The recipes below describe some ways of doing
+this.
=head2 Authentication (logging in)
}
-=head2 Serving static content
-
-Serving static content in Catalyst used to be somewhat tricky; the use
-of L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple> makes everything much easier.
-This plugin will automatically serve your static content during development,
-but allows you to easily switch to Apache (or other server) in a
-production environment.
+=head2 Role-based Authorization
-=head3 Introduction to Static::Simple
+For more advanced access control, you may want to consider using role-based
+authorization. This means you can assign different roles to each user, e.g.
+"user", "admin", etc.
-Static::Simple is a plugin that will help to serve static content for your
-application. By default, it will serve most types of files, excluding some
-standard Template Toolkit extensions, out of your B<root> file directory. All
-files are served by path, so if B<images/me.jpg> is requested, then
-B<root/images/me.jpg> is found and served.
+The C<login> and C<logout> methods and view template are exactly the same as
+in the previous example.
-=head3 Usage
+The L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles> plugin is required when
+implementing roles:
-Using the plugin is as simple as setting your use line in MyApp.pm to include:
+ use Catalyst qw/
+ Authentication
+ Authentication::Credential::Password
+ Authentication::Store::Htpasswd
+ Authorization::Roles
+ /;
- use Catalyst qw/Static::Simple/;
+Roles are implemented automatically when using
+L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::Htpasswd>:
-and already files will be served.
+ # no additional role configuration required
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication}{htpasswd} = "passwdfile";
-=head3 Configuring
+Or can be set up manually when using L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIC>:
-Static content is best served from a single directory within your root
-directory. Having many different directories such as C<root/css> and
-C<root/images> requires more code to manage, because you must separately
-identify each static directory--if you decide to add a C<root/js>
-directory, you'll need to change your code to account for it. In
-contrast, keeping all static directories as subdirectories of a main
-C<root/static> directory makes things much easier to manage. Here's an
-example of a typical root directory structure:
-
- root/
- root/content.tt
- root/controller/stuff.tt
- root/header.tt
- root/static/
- root/static/css/main.css
- root/static/images/logo.jpg
- root/static/js/code.js
-
-
-All static content lives under C<root/static>, with everything else being
-Template Toolkit files.
+ # Authorization using a many-to-many role relationship
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{authorization}{dbic} = {
+ 'role_class' => 'My::Model::DBIC::Role',
+ 'role_field' => 'name',
+ 'user_role_user_field' => 'user',
-=over 4
+ # DBIx::Class only (omit if using Class::DBI)
+ 'role_rel' => 'user_role',
-=item Include Path
+ # Class::DBI only, (omit if using DBIx::Class)
+ 'user_role_class' => 'My::Model::CDBI::UserRole'
+ 'user_role_role_field' => 'role',
+ };
-You may of course want to change the default locations, and make
-Static::Simple look somewhere else, this is as easy as:
+To restrict access to any action, you can use the C<check_user_roles> method:
- MyApp->config->{static}->{include_path} = [
- MyApp->config->{root},
- '/path/to/my/files'
- ];
+ sub restricted : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-When you override include_path, it will not automatically append the
-normal root path, so you need to add it yourself if you still want
-it. These will be searched in order given, and the first matching file
-served.
+ $c->detach("unauthorized")
+ unless $c->check_user_roles( "admin" );
-=item Static directories
+ # do something restricted here
+ }
-If you want to force some directories to be only static, you can set
-them using paths relative to the root dir, or regular expressions:
+You can also use the C<assert_user_roles> method. This just gives an error if
+the current user does not have one of the required roles:
- MyApp->config->{static}->{dirs} = [
- 'static',
- qr/^(images|css)/,
- ];
+ sub also_restricted : Global {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ $c->assert_user_roles( qw/ user admin / );
+ }
+
+=head2 Authentication/Authorization
-=item File extensions
+This is done in several steps:
-By default, the following extensions are not served (that is, they will
-be processed by Catalyst): B<tmpl, tt, tt2, html, xhtml>. This list can
-be replaced easily:
+=over 4
- MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_extensions} = [
- qw/tmpl tt tt2 html xhtml/
- ];
+=item Verification
-=item Ignoring directories
+Getting the user to identify themselves, by giving you some piece of
+information known only to you and the user. Then you can assume that the user
+is who they say they are. This is called B<credential verification>.
-Entire directories can be ignored. If used with include_path,
-directories relative to the include_path dirs will also be ignored:
+=item Authorization
- MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_dirs} = [ qw/tmpl css/ ];
+Making sure the user only accesses functions you want them to access. This is
+done by checking the verified users data against your internal list of groups,
+or allowed persons for the current page.
=back
-=head3 More information
+=head3 Modules
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Static-Simple/>
+The Catalyst Authentication system is made up of many interacting modules, to
+give you the most flexibility possible.
-=head3 Serving manually with the Static plugin with HTTP::Daemon (myapp_server.pl)
+=head4 Credential verifiers
-In some situations you might want to control things more directly,
-using L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static>.
+A Credential module tables the user input, and passes it to a Store, or some
+other system, for verification. Typically, a user object is created by either
+this module or the Store and made accessible by a C<< $c->user >> call.
-In your main application class (MyApp.pm), load the plugin:
+Examples:
- use Catalyst qw/-Debug FormValidator Static OtherPlugin/;
+ Password - Simple username/password checking.
+ HTTPD - Checks using basic HTTP auth.
+ TypeKey - Check using the typekey system.
-You will also need to make sure your end method does I<not> forward
-static content to the view, perhaps like this:
+=head3 Storage backends
- sub end : Private {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+A Storage backend contains the actual data representing the users. It is
+queried by the credential verifiers. Updating the store is not done within
+this system, you will need to do it yourself.
- $c->forward( 'MyApp::View::TT' )
- unless ( $c->res->body || !$c->stash->{template} );
- }
+Examples:
-This code will only forward to the view if a template has been
-previously defined by a controller and if there is not already data in
-C<$c-E<gt>res-E<gt>body>.
+ DBIC - Storage using a database.
+ Minimal - Storage using a simple hash (for testing).
-Next, create a controller to handle requests for the /static path. Use
-the Helper to save time. This command will create a stub controller as
-C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Static.pm>.
+=head3 User objects
- $ script/myapp_create.pl controller Static
+A User object is created by either the storage backend or the credential
+verifier, and filled with the retrieved user information.
-Edit the file and add the following methods:
+Examples:
- # serve all files under /static as static files
- sub default : Path('/static') {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ Hash - A simple hash of keys and values.
- # Optional, allow the browser to cache the content
- $c->res->headers->header( 'Cache-Control' => 'max-age=86400' );
+=head3 ACL authorization
- $c->serve_static; # from Catalyst::Plugin::Static
- }
+ACL stands for Access Control List. The ACL plugin allows you to regulate
+access on a path by path basis, by listing which users, or roles, have access
+to which paths.
- # also handle requests for /favicon.ico
- sub favicon : Path('/favicon.ico') {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+=head3 Roles authorization
- $c->serve_static;
- }
+Authorization by roles is for assigning users to groups, which can then be
+assigned to ACLs, or just checked when needed.
-You can also define a different icon for the browser to use instead of
-favicon.ico by using this in your HTML header:
+=head3 Logging in
- <link rel="icon" href="/static/myapp.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
+When you have chosen your modules, all you need to do is call the C<<
+$c->login >> method. If called with no parameters, it will try to find
+suitable parameters, such as B<username> and B<password>, or you can pass it
+these values.
-=head3 Common problems with the Static plugin
+=head3 Checking roles
-The Static plugin makes use of the C<shared-mime-info> package to
-automatically determine MIME types. This package is notoriously
-difficult to install, especially on win32 and OS X. For OS X the easiest
-path might be to install Fink, then use C<apt-get install
-shared-mime-info>. Restart the server, and everything should be fine.
+Role checking is done by using the C<< $c->check_user_roles >> method, this will
+check using the currently logged in user (via C<< $c->user >>). You pass it
+the name of a role to check, and it returns true if the user is a member.
-Make sure you are using the latest version (>= 0.16) for best
-results. If you are having errors serving CSS files, or if they get
-served as text/plain instead of text/css, you may have an outdated
-shared-mime-info version. You may also wish to simply use the following
-code in your Static controller:
+=head3 EXAMPLE
- if ($c->req->path =~ /css$/i) {
- $c->serve_static( "text/css" );
- } else {
- $c->serve_static;
- }
+ use Catalyst qw/Authentication
+ Authentication::Credential::Password
+ Authentication::Store::Htpasswd
+ Authorization::Roles/;
-=head3 Serving Static Files with Apache
+ __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication}{htpasswd} = "passwdfile";
-When using Apache, you can bypass Catalyst and any Static
-plugins/controllers controller by intercepting requests for the
-C<root/static> path at the server level. All that is required is to
-define a DocumentRoot and add a separate Location block for your static
-content. Here is a complete config for this application under mod_perl
-1.x:
+ sub login : Local {
+ my ($self, $c) = @_;
- <Perl>
- use lib qw(/var/www/MyApp/lib);
- </Perl>
- PerlModule MyApp
+ if ( my $user = $c->req->param("user")
+ and my $password = $c->req->param("password") )
+ {
+ if ( $c->login( $user, $password ) ) {
+ $c->res->body( "hello " . $c->user->name );
+ } else {
+ # login incorrect
+ }
+ }
+ else {
+ # invalid form input
+ }
+ }
- <VirtualHost *>
- ServerName myapp.example.com
- DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
- <Location />
- SetHandler perl-script
- PerlHandler MyApp
- </Location>
- <LocationMatch "/(static|favicon.ico)">
- SetHandler default-handler
- </LocationMatch>
- </VirtualHost>
+ sub restricted : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-And here's a simpler example that'll get you started:
+ $c->detach("unauthorized")
+ unless $c->check_user_roles( "admin" );
- Alias /static/ "/my/static/files/"
- <Location "/static">
- SetHandler none
- </Location>
+ # do something restricted here
+ }
-=head2 Forwarding with arguments
+=head3 Using authentication in a testing environment
-Sometimes you want to pass along arguments when forwarding to another
-action. As of version 5.30, arguments can be passed in the call to
-C<forward>; in earlier versions, you can manually set the arguments in
-the Catalyst Request object:
+Ideally, to write tests for authentication/authorization code one would first
+set up a test database with known data, then use
+L<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst> to simulate a user logging in. Unfortunately
+the former can be rather awkward, which is why it's a good thing that the
+authentication framework is so flexible.
- # version 5.30 and later:
- $c->forward('/wherever', [qw/arg1 arg2 arg3/]);
+Instead of using a test database, one can simply change the authentication
+store to something a bit easier to deal with in a testing
+environment. Additionally, this has the advantage of not modifying one's
+database, which can be problematic if one forgets to use the testing instead of
+production database.
- # pre-5.30
- $c->req->args([qw/arg1 arg2 arg3/]);
- $c->forward('/wherever');
+e.g.,
-(See the L<Catalyst::Manual::Intro> Flow_Control section for more
-information on passing arguments via C<forward>.)
+ use Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::Minimal::Backend;
-=head2 Configure your application
-
-You configure your application with the C<config> method in your
-application class. This can be hard-coded, or brought in from a
-separate configuration file.
-
-=head3 Using YAML
-
-YAML is a method for creating flexible and readable configuration
-files. It's a great way to keep your Catalyst application configuration
-in one easy-to-understand location.
-
-In your application class (e.g. C<lib/MyApp.pm>):
+ # Sets up the user `test_user' with password `test_pass'
+ MyApp->default_auth_store(
+ Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::Minimal::Backend->new({
+ test_user => { password => 'test_pass' },
+ })
+ );
- use YAML;
- # application setup
- __PACKAGE__->config( YAML::LoadFile(__PACKAGE__->config->{'home'} . '/myapp.yml') );
- __PACKAGE__->setup;
+Now, your test code can call C<$c->login('test_user', 'test_pass')> and
+successfully login, without messing with the database at all.
-Now create C<myapp.yml> in your application home:
+=head3 More information
- --- #YAML:1.0
- # DO NOT USE TABS FOR INDENTATION OR label/value SEPARATION!!!
- name: MyApp
+L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication> has a longer explanation.
- # session; perldoc Catalyst::Plugin::Session::FastMmap
- session:
- expires: '3600'
- rewrite: '0'
- storage: '/tmp/myapp.session'
+=head2 Authorization
- # emails; perldoc Catalyst::Plugin::Email
- # this passes options as an array :(
- email:
- - SMTP
- - localhost
+=head3 Introduction
-This is equivalent to:
+Authorization is the step that comes after authentication. Authentication
+establishes that the user agent is really representing the user we think it's
+representing, and then authorization determines what this user is allowed to
+do.
- # configure base package
- __PACKAGE__->config( name => MyApp );
- # configure authentication
- __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication} = {
- user_class => 'MyApp::Model::MyDB::Customer',
- ...
- };
- # configure sessions
- __PACKAGE__->config->{session} = {
- expires => 3600,
- ...
- };
- # configure email sending
- __PACKAGE__->config->{email} = [qw/SMTP localhost/];
+=head3 Role Based Access Control
-See also L<YAML>.
+Under role based access control each user is allowed to perform any number of
+roles. For example, at a zoo no one but specially trained personnel can enter
+the moose cage (Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretty nasti!). For example:
-=head2 Using existing DBIC (etc.) classes with Catalyst
+ package Zoo::Controller::MooseCage;
-Many people have existing Model classes that they would like to use with
-Catalyst (or, conversely, they want to write Catalyst models that can be
-used outside of Catalyst, e.g. in a cron job). It's trivial to write a
-simple component in Catalyst that slurps in an outside Model:
+ sub feed_moose : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- package MyApp::Model::DB;
- use base qw/Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema/;
- __PACKAGE__->config(
- schema_class => 'Some::DBIC::Schema',
- connect_info => ['dbi:SQLite:foo.db', '', '', {AutoCommit=>1}];
- );
- 1;
+ $c->model( "Moose" )->eat( $c->req->param("food") );
+ }
-and that's it! Now C<Some::DBIC::Schema> is part of your
-Cat app as C<MyApp::Model::DB>.
+With this action, anyone can just come into the moose cage and feed the moose,
+which is a very dangerous thing. We need to restrict this action, so that only
+a qualified moose feeder can perform that action.
-=head2 Delivering a Custom Error Page
+The Authorization::Roles plugin let's us perform role based access control
+checks. Let's load it:
-By default, Catalyst will display its own error page whenever it
-encounters an error in your application. When running under C<-Debug>
-mode, the error page is a useful screen including the error message and
-L<Data::Dump> output of the relevant parts of the C<$c> context object.
-When not in C<-Debug>, users see a simple "Please come back later" screen.
+ use Catalyst qw/
+ Authentication # yadda yadda
+ Authorization::Roles
+ /;
-To use a custom error page, use a special C<end> method to short-circuit
-the error processing. The following is an example; you might want to
-adjust it further depending on the needs of your application (for
-example, any calls to C<fillform> will probably need to go into this
-C<end> method; see L<Catalyst::Plugin::FillInForm>).
+And now our action should look like this:
- sub end : Private {
+ sub feed_moose : Local {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- if ( scalar @{ $c->error } ) {
- $c->stash->{errors} = $c->error;
- $c->stash->{template} = 'errors.tt';
- $c->forward('MyApp::View::TT');
- $c->error(0);
- }
-
- return 1 if $c->response->status =~ /^3\d\d$/;
- return 1 if $c->response->body;
-
- unless ( $c->response->content_type ) {
- $c->response->content_type('text/html; charset=utf-8');
+ if ( $c->check_roles( "moose_feeder" ) ) {
+ $c->model( "Moose" )->eat( $c->req->param("food") );
+ } else {
+ $c->stash->{error} = "unauthorized";
}
-
- $c->forward('MyApp::View::TT');
}
-You can manually set errors in your code to trigger this page by calling
+This checks C<< $c->user >>, and only if the user has B<all> the roles in the
+list, a true value is returned.
- $c->error( 'You broke me!' );
+C<check_roles> has a sister method, C<assert_roles>, which throws an exception
+if any roles are missing.
-=head2 Role-based Authorization
+Some roles that might actually make sense in, say, a forum application:
-For more advanced access control, you may want to consider using role-based
-authorization. This means you can assign different roles to each user, e.g.
-"user", "admin", etc.
+=over 4
-The C<login> and C<logout> methods and view template are exactly the same as
-in the previous example.
+=item *
-The L<Catalyst::Plugin::Authorization::Roles> plugin is required when
-implementing roles:
+administrator
- use Catalyst qw/
- Authentication
- Authentication::Credential::Password
- Authentication::Store::Htpasswd
- Authorization::Roles
- /;
+=item *
-Roles are implemented automatically when using
-L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::Htpasswd>:
+moderator
- # no additional role configuration required
- __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication}{htpasswd} = "passwdfile";
+=back
-Or can be set up manually when using L<Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIC>:
+each with a distinct task (system administration versus content administration).
- # Authorization using a many-to-many role relationship
- __PACKAGE__->config->{authorization}{dbic} = {
- 'role_class' => 'My::Model::DBIC::Role',
- 'role_field' => 'name',
- 'user_role_user_field' => 'user',
+=head3 Access Control Lists
- # DBIx::Class only (omit if using Class::DBI)
- 'role_rel' => 'user_role',
+Checking for roles all the time can be tedious and error prone.
- # Class::DBI only, (omit if using DBIx::Class)
- 'user_role_class' => 'My::Model::CDBI::UserRole'
- 'user_role_role_field' => 'role',
- };
+The Authorization::ACL plugin let's us declare where we'd like checks to be
+done automatically for us.
-To restrict access to any action, you can use the C<check_user_roles> method:
+For example, we may want to completely block out anyone who isn't a
+C<moose_feeder> from the entire C<MooseCage> controller:
- sub restricted : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", [qw/moose_feeder/] );
- $c->detach("unauthorized")
- unless $c->check_user_roles( "admin" );
+The role list behaves in the same way as C<check_roles>. However, the ACL
+plugin isn't limited to just interacting with the Roles plugin. We can use a
+code reference instead. For example, to allow either moose trainers or moose
+feeders into the moose cage, we can create a more complex check:
- # do something restricted here
- }
+ Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", sub {
+ my $c = shift;
+ $c->check_roles( "moose_trainer" ) || $c->check_roles( "moose_feeder" );
+ });
-You can also use the C<assert_user_roles> method. This just gives an error if
-the current user does not have one of the required roles:
+The more specific a role, the earlier it will be checked. Let's say moose
+feeders are now restricted to only the C<feed_moose> action, while moose
+trainers get access everywhere:
- sub also_restricted : Global {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- $c->assert_user_roles( qw/ user admin / );
- }
-
-=head2 Quick deployment: Building PAR Packages
+ Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", [qw/moose_trainer/] );
+ Zoo->allow_access_if( "/moose_cage/feed_moose", [qw/moose_feeder/]);
-You have an application running on your development box, but then you
-have to quickly move it to another one for
-demonstration/deployment/testing...
+When the C<feed_moose> action is accessed the second check will be made. If the
+user is a C<moose_feeder>, then access will be immediately granted. Otherwise,
+the next rule in line will be tested - the one checking for a C<moose_trainer>.
+If this rule is not satisfied, access will be immediately denied.
-PAR packages can save you from a lot of trouble here. They are usual Zip
-files that contain a blib tree; you can even include all prereqs and a
-perl interpreter by setting a few flags!
+Rules applied to the same path will be checked in the order they were added.
-=head3 Follow these few points to try it out!
+Lastly, handling access denial events is done by creating an C<access_denied>
+private action:
-1. Install Catalyst and PAR 0.89 (or later)
+ sub access_denied : Private {
+ my ( $self, $c, $action ) = @_;
- % perl -MCPAN -e 'install Catalyst'
- ...
- % perl -MCPAN -e 'install PAR'
- ...
+
+ }
-2. Create a application
+This action works much like auto, in that it is inherited across namespaces
+(not like object oriented code). This means that the C<access_denied> action
+which is B<nearest> to the action which was blocked will be triggered.
- % catalyst.pl MyApp
- ...
- % cd MyApp
+If this action does not exist, an error will be thrown, which you can clean up
+in your C<end> private action instead.
-Recent versions of Catalyst (5.62 and up) include
-L<Module::Install::Catalyst>, which simplifies the process greatly. From the shell in your application directory:
+Also, it's important to note that if you restrict access to "/" then C<end>,
+C<default>, etc will also be restricted.
- % perl Makefile.PL
- % make catalyst_par
+ MyApp->acl_allow_root_internals;
-Congratulations! Your package "myapp.par" is ready, the following
-steps are just optional.
+will create rules that permit access to C<end>, C<begin>, and C<auto> in the
+root of your app (but not in any other controller).
-3. Test your PAR package with "parl" (no typo)
+=head1 Models
- % parl myapp.par
- Usage:
- [parl] myapp[.par] [script] [arguments]
+Models are where application data belongs. Catalyst is exteremely
+flexible with the kind of models that it can use. The recipes here
+are just the start.
- Examples:
- parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl -r
- myapp myapp_cgi.pl
+=head2 Using existing DBIC (etc.) classes with Catalyst
- Available scripts:
- myapp_cgi.pl
- myapp_create.pl
- myapp_fastcgi.pl
- myapp_server.pl
- myapp_test.pl
+Many people have existing Model classes that they would like to use with
+Catalyst (or, conversely, they want to write Catalyst models that can be
+used outside of Catalyst, e.g. in a cron job). It's trivial to write a
+simple component in Catalyst that slurps in an outside Model:
- % parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl
- You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000
+ package MyApp::Model::DB;
+ use base qw/Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema/;
+ __PACKAGE__->config(
+ schema_class => 'Some::DBIC::Schema',
+ connect_info => ['dbi:SQLite:foo.db', '', '', {AutoCommit=>1}];
+ );
+ 1;
-Yes, this nifty little starter application gets automatically included.
-You can also use "catalyst_par_script('myapp_server.pl')" to set a
-default script to execute.
+and that's it! Now C<Some::DBIC::Schema> is part of your
+Cat app as C<MyApp::Model::DB>.
-6. Want to create a binary that includes the Perl interpreter?
+=head2 DBIx::Class as a Catalyst Model
- % pp -o myapp myapp.par
- % ./myapp myapp_server.pl
- You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000
+See L<Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema>.
-=head2 mod_perl Deployment
+=head2 XMLRPC
-=head3 Pros & Cons
+Unlike SOAP, XMLRPC is a very simple (and imo elegant) web-services
+protocol, exchanging small XML messages like these:
-mod_perl is the best solution for many applications, but I'll list some pros
-and cons so you can decide for yourself. The other production deployment
-option is FastCGI, which I'll talk about in a future calendar article.
+Request:
-=head4 Pros
+ POST /api HTTP/1.1
+ TE: deflate,gzip;q=0.3
+ Connection: TE, close
+ Accept: text/xml
+ Accept: multipart/*
+ Host: 127.0.0.1:3000
+ User-Agent: SOAP::Lite/Perl/0.60
+ Content-Length: 192
+ Content-Type: text/xml
-=head4 Speed
+ <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+ <methodCall>
+ <methodName>add</methodName>
+ <params>
+ <param><value><int>1</int></value></param>
+ <param><value><int>2</int></value></param>
+ </params>
+ </methodCall>
-mod_perl is very fast and your app will benefit from being loaded in memory
-within each Apache process.
+Response:
-=head4 Shared memory for multiple apps
+ Connection: close
+ Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:45:55 GMT
+ Content-Length: 133
+ Content-Type: text/xml
+ Status: 200
+ X-Catalyst: 5.70
-If you need to run several Catalyst apps on the same server, mod_perl will
-share the memory for common modules.
+ <?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
+ <methodResponse>
+ <params>
+ <param><value><int>3</int></value></param>
+ </params>
+ </methodResponse>
-=head4 Cons
+Now follow these few steps to implement the application:
-=head4 Memory usage
+1. Install Catalyst (5.61 or later), Catalyst::Plugin::XMLRPC (0.06 or
+later) and SOAP::Lite (for XMLRPCsh.pl).
-Since your application is fully loaded in memory, every Apache process will
-be rather large. This means a large Apache process will be tied up while
-serving static files, large files, or dealing with slow clients. For this
-reason, it is best to run a two-tiered web architecture with a lightweight
-frontend server passing dynamic requests to a large backend mod_perl
-server.
+2. Create an application framework:
-=head4 Reloading
+ % catalyst.pl MyApp
+ ...
+ % cd MyApp
-Any changes made to the core code of your app require a full Apache restart.
-Catalyst does not support Apache::Reload or StatINC. This is another good
-reason to run a frontend web server where you can set up an
-C<ErrorDocument 502> page to report that your app is down for maintenance.
+3. Add the XMLRPC plugin to MyApp.pm
-=head4 Cannot run multiple versions of the same app
+ use Catalyst qw/-Debug Static::Simple XMLRPC/;
-It is not possible to run two different versions of the same application in
-the same Apache instance because the namespaces will collide.
+4. Add an API controller
-=head4 Setup
+ % ./script/myapp_create.pl controller API
-Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about setting up mod_perl
-to run a Catalyst app.
+5. Add a XMLRPC redispatch method and an add method with Remote
+attribute to lib/MyApp/Controller/API.pm
-=head4 1. Install Catalyst::Engine::Apache
+ sub default : Private {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ $c->xmlrpc;
+ }
-You should install the latest versions of both Catalyst and
-Catalyst::Engine::Apache. The Apache engines were separated from the
-Catalyst core in version 5.50 to allow for updates to the engine without
-requiring a new Catalyst release.
+ sub add : Remote {
+ my ( $self, $c, $a, $b ) = @_;
+ return $a + $b;
+ }
-=head4 2. Install Apache with mod_perl
+The default action is the entry point for each XMLRPC request. It will
+redispatch every request to methods with Remote attribute in the same
+class.
-Both Apache 1.3 and Apache 2 are supported, although Apache 2 is highly
-recommended. With Apache 2, make sure you are using the prefork MPM and not
-the worker MPM. The reason for this is that many Perl modules are not
-thread-safe and may have problems running within the threaded worker
-environment. Catalyst is thread-safe however, so if you know what you're
-doing, you may be able to run using worker.
+The C<add> method is not a traditional action; it has no private or
+public path. Only the XMLRPC dispatcher knows it exists.
-In Debian, the following commands should get you going.
+6. That's it! You have built your first web service. Let's test it with
+XMLRPCsh.pl (part of SOAP::Lite):
- apt-get install apache2-mpm-prefork
- apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2
+ % ./script/myapp_server.pl
+ ...
+ % XMLRPCsh.pl http://127.0.0.1:3000/api
+ Usage: method[(parameters)]
+ > add( 1, 2 )
+ --- XMLRPC RESULT ---
+ '3'
-=head4 3. Configure your application
+=head3 Tip
-Every Catalyst application will automagically become a mod_perl handler
-when run within mod_perl. This makes the configuration extremely easy.
-Here is a basic Apache 2 configuration.
+Your return data type is usually auto-detected, but you can easily
+enforce a specific one.
- PerlSwitches -I/var/www/MyApp/lib
- PerlModule MyApp
+ sub add : Remote {
+ my ( $self, $c, $a, $b ) = @_;
+ return RPC::XML::int->new( $a + $b );
+ }
- <Location />
- SetHandler modperl
- PerlResponseHandler MyApp
- </Location>
-The most important line here is C<PerlModule MyApp>. This causes mod_perl
-to preload your entire application into shared memory, including all of your
-controller, model, and view classes and configuration. If you have -Debug
-mode enabled, you will see the startup output scroll by when you first
-start Apache.
-For an example Apache 1.3 configuration, please see the documentation for
-L<Catalyst::Engine::Apache::MP13>.
+=head1 Views
-=head3 Test It
+Views pertain to the display of your application. As with models,
+catalyst is uncommonly flexible. The recipes below are just a start.
-That's it, your app is now a full-fledged mod_perl application! Try it out
-by going to http://your.server.com/.
+=head2 Catalyst::View::TT
-=head3 Other Options
+One of the first things you probably want to do when starting a new
+Catalyst application is set up your View. Catalyst doesn't care how you
+display your data; you can choose to generate HTML, PDF files, or plain
+text if you wanted.
-=head4 Non-root location
+Most Catalyst applications use a template system to generate their HTML,
+and though there are several template systems available, Template
+Toolkit is probably the most popular.
-You may not always want to run your app at the root of your server or virtual
-host. In this case, it's a simple change to run at any non-root location
-of your choice.
+Once again, the Catalyst developers have done all the hard work, and
+made things easy for the rest of us. Catalyst::View::TT provides the
+interface to Template Toolkit, and provides Helpers which let us set it
+up that much more easily.
- <Location /myapp>
- SetHandler modperl
- PerlResponseHandler MyApp
- </Location>
-
-When running this way, it is best to make use of the C<uri_for> method in
-Catalyst for constructing correct links.
+=head3 Creating your View
-=head4 Static file handling
+Catalyst::View::TT provides two different helpers for us to use: TT and
+TTSite.
-Static files can be served directly by Apache for a performance boost.
+=head4 TT
- DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
- <Location /static>
- SetHandler default-handler
- </Location>
-
-This will let all files within root/static be handled directly by Apache. In
-a two-tiered setup, the frontend server should handle static files.
-The configuration to do this on the frontend will vary.
+Create a basic Template Toolkit View using the provided helper script:
-=head2 Extending RenderView (formerly DefaultEnd)
+ script/myapp_create.pl view TT TT
-The recommended approach for an C<end> action is to use
-L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView> (taking the place of
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::DefaultEnd>), which does what you usually need.
-However there are times when you need to add a bit to it, but don't want
-to write your own C<end> action.
+This will create lib/MyApp/View/MyView.pm, which is going to be pretty
+empty to start. However, it sets everything up that you need to get
+started. You can now define which template you want and forward to your
+view. For instance:
-You can extend it like this:
+ sub hello : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-To add something to an C<end> action that is called before rendering
-(this is likely to be what you want), simply place it in the C<end>
-method:
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
- sub end : ActionClass('RenderView') {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- # do stuff here; the RenderView action is called afterwards
+ $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
}
-To add things to an C<end> action that are called I<after> rendering,
-you can set it up like this:
+In practice you wouldn't do the forwarding manually, but would
+use L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView>.
- sub render : ActionClass('RenderView') { }
+=head4 TTSite
- sub end : Private {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- $c->forward('render');
- # do stuff here
- }
-
-=head2 Catalyst on shared hosting
+Although the TT helper does create a functional, working view, you may
+find yourself having to create the same template files and changing the
+same options every time you create a new application. The TTSite helper
+saves us even more time by creating the basic templates and setting some
+common options for us.
-So, you want to put your Catalyst app out there for the whole world to
-see, but you don't want to break the bank. There is an answer - if you
-can get shared hosting with FastCGI and a shell, you can install your
-Catalyst app in a local directory on your shared host. First, run
+Once again, you can use the helper script:
- perl -MCPAN -e shell
+ script/myapp_create.pl view TT TTSite
-and go through the standard CPAN configuration process. Then exit out
-without installing anything. Next, open your .bashrc and add
+This time, the helper sets several options for us in the generated View.
- export PATH=$HOME/local/bin:$HOME/local/script:$PATH
- perlversion=`perl -v | grep 'built for' | awk '{print $4}' | sed -e 's/v//;'`
- export PERL5LIB=$HOME/local/share/perl/$perlversion:$HOME/local/lib/perl/$perlversion:$HOME/local/lib:$PERL5LIB
+ __PACKAGE__->config({
+ CATALYST_VAR => 'Catalyst',
+ INCLUDE_PATH => [
+ MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'src' ),
+ MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'lib' )
+ ],
+ PRE_PROCESS => 'config/main',
+ WRAPPER => 'site/wrapper',
+ ERROR => 'error.tt2',
+ TIMER => 0
+ });
-and log out, then back in again (or run C<". .bashrc"> if you
-prefer). Finally, edit C<.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm> and add
+=over
- 'make_install_arg' => qq[SITEPREFIX=$ENV{HOME}/local],
- 'makepl_arg' => qq[INSTALLDIRS=site install_base=$ENV{HOME}/local],
+=item
-Now you can install the modules you need using CPAN as normal; they
-will be installed into your local directory, and perl will pick them
-up. Finally, change directory into the root of your virtual host and
-symlink your application's script directory in:
+INCLUDE_PATH defines the directories that Template Toolkit should search
+for the template files.
- cd path/to/mydomain.com
- ln -s ~/lib/MyApp/script script
+=item
-And add the following lines to your .htaccess file (assuming the server
-is setup to handle .pl as fcgi - you may need to rename the script to
-myapp_fastcgi.fcgi and/or use a SetHandler directive):
+PRE_PROCESS is used to process configuration options which are common to
+every template file.
- RewriteEngine On
- RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/?script/myapp_fastcgi.pl
- RewriteRule ^(.*)$ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/$1 [PT,L]
+=item
-Now C<http://mydomain.com/> should now Just Work. Congratulations, now
-you can tell your friends about your new website (or in our case, tell
-the client it's time to pay the invoice :) )
+WRAPPER is a file which is processed with each template, usually used to
+easily provide a common header and footer for every page.
-=head2 Caching
+=back
-Catalyst makes it easy to employ several different types of caching to
-speed up your applications.
+In addition to setting these options, the TTSite helper also created the
+template and config files for us! In the 'root' directory, you'll notice
+two new directories: src and lib.
-=head3 Cache Plugins
+Several configuration files in root/lib/config are called by PRE_PROCESS.
-There are three wrapper plugins around common CPAN cache modules:
-Cache::FastMmap, Cache::FileCache, and Cache::Memcached. These can be
-used to cache the result of slow operations.
+The files in root/lib/site are the site-wide templates, called by
+WRAPPER, and display the html framework, control the layout, and provide
+the templates for the header and footer of your page. Using the template
+organization provided makes it much easier to standardize pages and make
+changes when they are (inevitably) needed.
-This very page you're viewing makes use of the FileCache plugin to cache the
-rendered XHTML version of the source POD document. This is an ideal
-application for a cache because the source document changes infrequently but
-may be viewed many times.
+The template files that you will create for your application will go
+into root/src, and you don't need to worry about putting the the <html>
+or <head> sections; just put in the content. The WRAPPER will the rest
+of the page around your template for you.
- use Catalyst qw/Cache::FileCache/;
-
- ...
-
- use File::stat;
- sub render_pod : Local {
- my ( self, $c ) = @_;
-
- # the cache is keyed on the filename and the modification time
- # to check for updates to the file.
- my $file = $c->path_to( 'root', '2005', '11.pod' );
- my $mtime = ( stat $file )->mtime;
-
- my $cached_pod = $c->cache->get("$file $mtime");
- if ( !$cached_pod ) {
- $cached_pod = do_slow_pod_rendering();
- # cache the result for 12 hours
- $c->cache->set( "$file $mtime", $cached_pod, '12h' );
- }
- $c->stash->{pod} = $cached_pod;
- }
-
-We could actually cache the result forever, but using a value such as 12 hours
-allows old entries to be automatically expired when they are no longer needed.
-=head3 Page Caching
+=head3 $c->stash
-Another method of caching is to cache the entire HTML page. While this is
-traditionally handled by a front-end proxy server like Squid, the Catalyst
-PageCache plugin makes it trivial to cache the entire output from
-frequently-used or slow actions.
+Of course, having the template system include the header and footer for
+you isn't all that we want our templates to do. We need to be able to
+put data into our templates, and have it appear where and how we want
+it, right? That's where the stash comes in.
-Many sites have a busy content-filled front page that might look something
-like this. It probably takes a while to process, and will do the exact same
-thing for every single user who views the page.
+In our controllers, we can add data to the stash, and then access it
+from the template. For instance:
- sub front_page : Path('/') {
+ sub hello : Local {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-
- $c->forward( 'get_news_articles' );
- $c->forward( 'build_lots_of_boxes' );
- $c->forward( 'more_slow_stuff' );
-
- $c->stash->{template} = 'index.tt';
- }
-We can add the PageCache plugin to speed things up.
+ $c->stash->{name} = 'Adam';
- use Catalyst qw/Cache::FileCache PageCache/;
-
- sub front_page : Path ('/') {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-
- $c->cache_page( 300 );
-
- # same processing as above
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
+
+ $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
}
-
-Now the entire output of the front page, from <html> to </html>, will be
-cached for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the next request will rebuild the
-page and it will be re-cached.
-Note that the page cache is keyed on the page URI plus all parameters, so
-requests for / and /?foo=bar will result in different cache items. Also,
-only GET requests will be cached by the plugin.
+Then, in hello.tt:
-You can even get that front-end Squid proxy to help out by enabling HTTP
-headers for the cached page.
+ <strong>Hello, [% name %]!</strong>
- MyApp->config->{page_cache}->{set_http_headers} = 1;
-
-This would now set the following headers so proxies and browsers may cache
-the content themselves.
+When you view this page, it will display "Hello, Adam!"
- Cache-Control: max-age=($expire_time - time)
- Expires: $expire_time
- Last-Modified: $cache_created_time
-
-=head3 Template Caching
+All of the information in your stash is available, by its name/key, in
+your templates. And your data don't have to be plain, old, boring
+scalars. You can pass array references and hash references, too.
-Template Toolkit provides support for caching compiled versions of your
-templates. To enable this in Catalyst, use the following configuration.
-TT will cache compiled templates keyed on the file mtime, so changes will
-still be automatically detected.
+In your controller:
- package MyApp::View::TT;
-
- use strict;
- use warnings;
- use base 'Catalyst::View::TT';
-
- __PACKAGE__->config(
- COMPILE_DIR => '/tmp/template_cache',
- );
-
- 1;
-
-=head3 More Info
+ sub hello : Local {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-See the documentation for each cache plugin for more details and other
-available configuration options.
+ $c->stash->{names} = [ 'Adam', 'Dave', 'John' ];
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::FastMmap>
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::FileCache>
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::Memcached>
-L<Catalyst::Plugin::PageCache>
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Template-Toolkit/lib/Template/Manual/Config.pod#Caching_and_Compiling_Options>
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
-=head2 Component-based Subrequests
+ $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
+ }
-See L<Catalyst::Plugin::SubRequest>.
+In hello.tt:
-=head2 DBIx::Class as a Catalyst Model
+ [% FOREACH name IN names %]
+ <strong>Hello, [% name %]!</strong><br />
+ [% END %]
-See L<Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema>.
+This allowed us to loop through each item in the arrayref, and display a
+line for each name that we have.
-=head2 Authentication/Authorization
+This is the most basic usage, but Template Toolkit is quite powerful,
+and allows you to truly keep your presentation logic separate from the
+rest of your application.
-This is done in several steps:
+=head3 $c->uri_for()
-=over 4
+One of my favorite things about Catalyst is the ability to move an
+application around without having to worry that everything is going to
+break. One of the areas that used to be a problem was with the http
+links in your template files. For example, suppose you have an
+application installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar. The links point
+to "/Calendar", "/Calendar/2005", "/Calendar/2005/10", etc. If you move
+the application to be at http://www.mydomain.com/Tools/Calendar, then
+all of those links will suddenly break.
-=item Verification
+That's where $c->uri_for() comes in. This function will merge its
+parameters with either the base location for the app, or its current
+namespace. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.
-Getting the user to identify themselves, by giving you some piece of
-information known only to you and the user. Then you can assume that the user
-is who they say they are. This is called B<credential verification>.
+In your template, you can use the following:
-=item Authorization
+ <a href="[% c.uri_for('/login') %]">Login Here</a>
-Making sure the user only accesses functions you want them to access. This is
-done by checking the verified users data against your internal list of groups,
-or allowed persons for the current page.
+Although the parameter starts with a forward slash, this is relative to the application root, not the webserver root. This is important to remember. So, if your application is installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar, then the link would be http://www.mydomain.com/Calendar/Login. If you move your application to a different domain or path, then that link will still be correct.
-=back
+Likewise,
-=head3 Modules
+ <a href="[% c.uri_for('2005','10', '24') %]">October, 24 2005</a>
-The Catalyst Authentication system is made up of many interacting modules, to
-give you the most flexibility possible.
+The first parameter does NOT have a forward slash, and so it will be relative to the current namespace. If the application is installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar. and if the template is called from MyApp::Controller::Display, then the link would become http://www.domain.com/Calendar/Display/2005/10/24.
-=head4 Credential verifiers
+Once again, this allows you to move your application around without having to worry about broken links. But there's something else, as well. Since the links are generated by uri_for, you can use the same template file by several different controllers, and each controller will get the links that its supposed to. Since we believe in Don't Repeat Yourself, this is particularly helpful if you have common elements in your site that you want to keep in one file.
-A Credential module tables the user input, and passes it to a Store, or some
-other system, for verification. Typically, a user object is created by either
-this module or the Store and made accessible by a C<< $c->user >> call.
+Further Reading:
-Examples:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst>
- Password - Simple username/password checking.
- HTTPD - Checks using basic HTTP auth.
- TypeKey - Check using the typekey system.
+L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst%3A%3AView%3A%3ATT>
-=head3 Storage backends
+L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Template>
-A Storage backend contains the actual data representing the users. It is
-queried by the credential verifiers. Updating the store is not done within
-this system, you will need to do it yourself.
+=head2 Adding RSS feeds
-Examples:
+Adding RSS feeds to your Catalyst applications is simple. We'll see two
+different aproaches here, but the basic premise is that you forward to
+the normal view action first to get the objects, then handle the output
+differently.
- DBIC - Storage using a database.
- Minimal - Storage using a simple hash (for testing).
-
-=head3 User objects
-
-A User object is created by either the storage backend or the credential
-verifier, and filled with the retrieved user information.
-
-Examples:
-
- Hash - A simple hash of keys and values.
-
-=head3 ACL authorization
-
-ACL stands for Access Control List. The ACL plugin allows you to regulate
-access on a path by path basis, by listing which users, or roles, have access
-to which paths.
-
-=head3 Roles authorization
-
-Authorization by roles is for assigning users to groups, which can then be
-assigned to ACLs, or just checked when needed.
-
-=head3 Logging in
-
-When you have chosen your modules, all you need to do is call the C<<
-$c->login >> method. If called with no parameters, it will try to find
-suitable parameters, such as B<username> and B<password>, or you can pass it
-these values.
-
-=head3 Checking roles
-
-Role checking is done by using the C<< $c->check_user_roles >> method, this will
-check using the currently logged in user (via C<< $c->user >>). You pass it
-the name of a role to check, and it returns true if the user is a member.
-
-=head3 EXAMPLE
-
- use Catalyst qw/Authentication
- Authentication::Credential::Password
- Authentication::Store::Htpasswd
- Authorization::Roles/;
-
- __PACKAGE__->config->{authentication}{htpasswd} = "passwdfile";
-
- sub login : Local {
- my ($self, $c) = @_;
-
- if ( my $user = $c->req->param("user")
- and my $password = $c->req->param("password") )
- {
- if ( $c->login( $user, $password ) ) {
- $c->res->body( "hello " . $c->user->name );
- } else {
- # login incorrect
- }
- }
- else {
- # invalid form input
- }
- }
-
- sub restricted : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-
- $c->detach("unauthorized")
- unless $c->check_user_roles( "admin" );
-
- # do something restricted here
- }
-
-=head3 Using authentication in a testing environment
-
-Ideally, to write tests for authentication/authorization code one would first
-set up a test database with known data, then use
-L<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst> to simulate a user logging in. Unfortunately
-the former can be rather awkward, which is why it's a good thing that the
-authentication framework is so flexible.
-
-Instead of using a test database, one can simply change the authentication
-store to something a bit easier to deal with in a testing
-environment. Additionally, this has the advantage of not modifying one's
-database, which can be problematic if one forgets to use the testing instead of
-production database.
-
-e.g.,
-
- use Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::Minimal::Backend;
-
- # Sets up the user `test_user' with password `test_pass'
- MyApp->default_auth_store(
- Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication::Store::Minimal::Backend->new({
- test_user => { password => 'test_pass' },
- })
- );
-
-Now, your test code can call C<$c->login('test_user', 'test_pass')> and
-successfully login, without messing with the database at all.
-
-=head3 More information
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication> has a longer explanation.
-
-=head2 Sessions
-
-When you have your users identified, you will want to somehow remember that
-fact, to save them from having to identify themselves for every single
-page. One way to do this is to send the username and password parameters in
-every single page, but that's ugly, and won't work for static pages.
-
-Sessions are a method of saving data related to some transaction, and giving
-the whole collection a single ID. This ID is then given to the user to return
-to us on every page they visit while logged in. The usual way to do this is
-using a browser cookie.
-
-Catalyst uses two types of plugins to represent sessions:
-
-=head3 State
-
-A State module is used to keep track of the state of the session between the
-users browser, and your application.
-
-A common example is the Cookie state module, which sends the browser a cookie
-containing the session ID. It will use default value for the cookie name and
-domain, so will "just work" when used.
-
-=head3 Store
-
-A Store module is used to hold all the data relating to your session, for
-example the users ID, or the items for their shopping cart. You can store data
-in memory (FastMmap), in a file (File) or in a database (DBI).
-
-=head3 Authentication magic
-
-If you have included the session modules in your application, the
-Authentication modules will automagically use your session to save and
-retrieve the user data for you.
-
-=head3 Using a session
-
-Once the session modules are loaded, the session is available as C<<
-$c->session >>, and can be writen to and read from as a simple hash reference.
-
-=head3 EXAMPLE
-
- use Catalyst qw/
- Session
- Session::Store::FastMmap
- Session::State::Cookie
- /;
-
-
- ## Write data into the session
-
- sub add_item : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-
- my $item_id = $c->req->param("item");
-
- push @{ $c->session->{items} }, $item_id;
-
- }
-
- ## A page later we retrieve the data from the session:
-
- sub get_items : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-
- $c->stash->{items_to_display} = $c->session->{items};
-
- }
-
-
-=head3 More information
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session>
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-Cookie>
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-URI>
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-FastMmap>
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-File>
-
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-DBI>
-
-=head2 Adding RSS feeds
-
-Adding RSS feeds to your Catalyst applications is simple. We'll see two
-different aproaches here, but the basic premise is that you forward to
-the normal view action first to get the objects, then handle the output
-differently.
-
-=head3 Using TT templates
+=head3 Using TT templates
This is the aproach used in Agave (L<http://dev.rawmode.org/>).
Now, go ahead and make RSS feeds for all your stuff. The world *needs*
updates on your goldfish!
-=head2 FastCGI Deployment
+=head2 Forcing the browser to download content
-FastCGI is a high-performance extension to CGI. It is suitable
-for production environments.
+Sometimes you need your application to send content for download. For
+example, you can generate a comma-separated values (CSV) file for your
+users to download and import into their spreadsheet program.
-=head3 Pros
+Let's say you have an C<Orders> controller which generates a CSV file
+in the C<export> action (i.e., C<http://localhost:3000/orders/export>):
-=head4 Speed
+ sub export : Local Args(0) {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
-FastCGI performs equally as well as mod_perl. Don't let the 'CGI' fool you;
-your app runs as multiple persistent processes ready to receive connections
-from the web server.
+ # In a real application, you'd generate this from the database
+ my $csv = "1,5.99\n2,29.99\n3,3.99\n";
-=head4 App Server
+ $c->res->content_type('text/comma-separated-values');
+ $c->res->body($csv);
+ }
-When using external FastCGI servers, your application runs as a standalone
-application server. It may be restarted independently from the web server.
-This allows for a more robust environment and faster reload times when
-pushing new app changes. The frontend server can even be configured to
-display a friendly "down for maintenance" page while the application is
-restarting.
+Normally the browser uses the last part of the URI to generate a
+filename for data it cannot display. In this case your browser would
+likely ask you to save a file named C<export>.
-=head4 Load-balancing
+Luckily you can have the browser download the content with a specific
+filename by setting the C<Content-Disposition> header:
-You can launch your application on multiple backend servers and allow the
-frontend web server to load-balance between all of them. And of course, if
-one goes down, your app continues to run fine.
+ my $filename = 'Important Orders.csv';
+ $c->res->header('Content-Disposition', qq[attachment; filename="$filename"]);
-=head4 Multiple versions of the same app
+Note the use of quotes around the filename; this ensures that any
+spaces in the filename are handled by the browser.
-Each FastCGI application is a separate process, so you can run different
-versions of the same app on a single server.
+Put this right before calling C<< $c->res->body >> and your browser
+will download a file named C<Important Orders.csv> instead of
+C<export>.
-=head4 Can run with threaded Apache
+You can also use this to have the browser download content which it
+normally displays, such as JPEG images or even HTML. Just be sure to
+set the appropriate content type and disposition.
-Since your app is not running inside of Apache, the faster mpm_worker module
-can be used without worrying about the thread safety of your application.
-=head3 Cons
+=head1 Controllers
-=head4 More complex environment
+Controllers are the main point of communication between the web server
+and your application. Here we explore some aspects of how they work.
-With FastCGI, there are more things to monitor and more processes running
-than when using mod_perl.
+=head2 Extending RenderView (formerly DefaultEnd)
-=head3 Setup
+The recommended approach for an C<end> action is to use
+L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView> (taking the place of
+L<Catalyst::Plugin::DefaultEnd>), which does what you usually need.
+However there are times when you need to add a bit to it, but don't want
+to write your own C<end> action.
-=head4 1. Install Apache with mod_fastcgi
+You can extend it like this:
-mod_fastcgi for Apache is a third party module, and can be found at
-L<http://www.fastcgi.com/>. It is also packaged in many distributions,
-for example, libapache2-mod-fastcgi in Debian.
+To add something to an C<end> action that is called before rendering
+(this is likely to be what you want), simply place it in the C<end>
+method:
-=head4 2. Configure your application
+ sub end : ActionClass('RenderView') {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ # do stuff here; the RenderView action is called afterwards
+ }
- # Serve static content directly
- DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
- Alias /static /var/www/MyApp/root/static
+To add things to an C<end> action that are called I<after> rendering,
+you can set it up like this:
- FastCgiServer /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -processes 3
- Alias /myapp/ /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/
-
- # Or, run at the root
- Alias / /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/
-
-The above commands will launch 3 app processes and make the app available at
-/myapp/
+ sub render : ActionClass('RenderView') { }
-=head3 Standalone server mode
+ sub end : Private {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ $c->forward('render');
+ # do stuff here
+ }
+
+=head2 Action Types
-While not as easy as the previous method, running your app as an external
-server gives you much more flexibility.
+=head3 Introduction
-First, launch your app as a standalone server listening on a socket.
+A Catalyst application is driven by one or more Controller modules. There are
+a number of ways that Catalyst can decide which of the methods in your
+controller modules it should call. Controller methods are also called actions,
+because they determine how your catalyst application should (re-)act to any
+given URL. When the application is started up, catalyst looks at all your
+actions, and decides which URLs they map to.
- script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l /tmp/myapp.socket -n 5 -p /tmp/myapp.pid -d
-
-You can also listen on a TCP port if your web server is not on the same
-machine.
+=head3 Type attributes
- script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l :8080 -n 5 -p /tmp/myapp.pid -d
-
-You will probably want to write an init script to handle starting/stopping
-of the app using the pid file.
+Each action is a normal method in your controller, except that it has an
+L<attribute|http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.7/lib/attributes.pm>
+attached. These can be one of several types.
-Now, we simply configure Apache to connect to the running server.
+Assume our Controller module starts with the following package declaration:
- # 502 is a Bad Gateway error, and will occur if the backend server is down
- # This allows us to display a friendly static page that says "down for
- # maintenance"
- Alias /_errors /var/www/MyApp/root/error-pages
- ErrorDocument 502 /_errors/502.html
+ package MyApp::Controller::Buckets;
- FastCgiExternalServer /tmp/myapp -socket /tmp/myapp.socket
- Alias /myapp/ /tmp/myapp/
-
- # Or, run at the root
- Alias / /tmp/myapp/
-
-=head3 More Info
+and we are running our application on localhost, port 3000 (the test
+server default).
-L<Catalyst::Engine::FastCGI>.
+=over 4
-=head2 Catalyst::View::TT
+=item Path
-One of the first things you probably want to do when starting a new
-Catalyst application is set up your View. Catalyst doesn't care how you
-display your data; you can choose to generate HTML, PDF files, or plain
-text if you wanted.
+A Path attribute also takes an argument, this can be either a relative
+or an absolute path. A relative path will be relative to the controller
+namespace, an absolute path will represent an exact matching URL.
-Most Catalyst applications use a template system to generate their HTML,
-and though there are several template systems available, Template
-Toolkit is probably the most popular.
+ sub my_handles : Path('handles') { .. }
-Once again, the Catalyst developers have done all the hard work, and
-made things easy for the rest of us. Catalyst::View::TT provides the
-interface to Template Toolkit, and provides Helpers which let us set it
-up that much more easily.
+becomes
-=head3 Creating your View
+ http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles
-Catalyst::View::TT provides two different helpers for us to use: TT and
-TTSite.
+and
-=head4 TT
+ sub my_handles : Path('/handles') { .. }
-Create a basic Template Toolkit View using the provided helper script:
+becomes
- script/myapp_create.pl view TT TT
+ http://localhost:3000/handles
-This will create lib/MyApp/View/MyView.pm, which is going to be pretty
-empty to start. However, it sets everything up that you need to get
-started. You can now define which template you want and forward to your
-view. For instance:
+=item Local
- sub hello : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+When using a Local attribute, no parameters are needed, instead, the name of
+the action is matched in the URL. The namespaces created by the name of the
+controller package is always part of the URL.
- $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
+ sub my_handles : Local { .. }
- $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
- }
+becomes
-In practice you wouldn't do the forwarding manually, but would
-use L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView>.
+ http://localhost:3000/buckets/my_handles
-=head4 TTSite
+=item Global
-Although the TT helper does create a functional, working view, you may
-find yourself having to create the same template files and changing the
-same options every time you create a new application. The TTSite helper
-saves us even more time by creating the basic templates and setting some
-common options for us.
+A Global attribute is similar to a Local attribute, except that the namespace
+of the controller is ignored, and matching starts at root.
-Once again, you can use the helper script:
+ sub my_handles : Global { .. }
- script/myapp_create.pl view TT TTSite
+becomes
-This time, the helper sets several options for us in the generated View.
+ http://localhost:3000/my_handles
- __PACKAGE__->config({
- CATALYST_VAR => 'Catalyst',
- INCLUDE_PATH => [
- MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'src' ),
- MyApp->path_to( 'root', 'lib' )
- ],
- PRE_PROCESS => 'config/main',
- WRAPPER => 'site/wrapper',
- ERROR => 'error.tt2',
- TIMER => 0
- });
+=item Regex
-=over
+By now you should have figured that a Regex attribute is just what it sounds
+like. This one takes a regular expression, and matches starting from
+root. These differ from the rest as they can match multiple URLs.
-=item
+ sub my_handles : Regex('^handles') { .. }
-INCLUDE_PATH defines the directories that Template Toolkit should search
-for the template files.
+matches
-=item
+ http://localhost:3000/handles
-PRE_PROCESS is used to process configuration options which are common to
-every template file.
+and
-=item
+ http://localhost:3000/handles_and_other_parts
-WRAPPER is a file which is processed with each template, usually used to
-easily provide a common header and footer for every page.
+etc.
-=back
+=item LocalRegex
-In addition to setting these options, the TTSite helper also created the
-template and config files for us! In the 'root' directory, you'll notice
-two new directories: src and lib.
+A LocalRegex is similar to a Regex, except it only matches below the current
+controller namespace.
-Several configuration files in root/lib/config are called by PRE_PROCESS.
+ sub my_handles : LocalRegex(^handles') { .. }
-The files in root/lib/site are the site-wide templates, called by
-WRAPPER, and display the html framework, control the layout, and provide
-the templates for the header and footer of your page. Using the template
-organization provided makes it much easier to standardize pages and make
-changes when they are (inevitably) needed.
+matches
-The template files that you will create for your application will go
-into root/src, and you don't need to worry about putting the the <html>
-or <head> sections; just put in the content. The WRAPPER will the rest
-of the page around your template for you.
+ http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles
-=head2 $c->stash
+and
-Of course, having the template system include the header and footer for
-you isn't all that we want our templates to do. We need to be able to
-put data into our templates, and have it appear where and how we want
-it, right? That's where the stash comes in.
+ http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles_and_other_parts
-In our controllers, we can add data to the stash, and then access it
-from the template. For instance:
+etc.
- sub hello : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+=item Private
- $c->stash->{name} = 'Adam';
+Last but not least, there is the Private attribute, which allows you to create
+your own internal actions, which can be forwarded to, but won't be matched as
+URLs.
- $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
+ sub my_handles : Private { .. }
- $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
- }
+becomes nothing at all..
-Then, in hello.tt:
+Catalyst also predefines some special Private actions, which you can override,
+these are:
- <strong>Hello, [% name %]!</strong>
+=over 4
-When you view this page, it will display "Hello, Adam!"
+=item default
-All of the information in your stash is available, by its name/key, in
-your templates. And your data don't have to be plain, old, boring
-scalars. You can pass array references and hash references, too.
+The default action will be called, if no other matching action is found. If
+you don't have one of these in your namespace, or any sub part of your
+namespace, you'll get an error page instead. If you want to find out where it
+was the user was trying to go, you can look in the request object using
+C<< $c->req->path >>.
-In your controller:
+ sub default : Private { .. }
- sub hello : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+works for all unknown URLs, in this controller namespace, or every one if put
+directly into MyApp.pm.
- $c->stash->{names} = [ 'Adam', 'Dave', 'John' ];
+=item index
- $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt';
+The index action is called when someone tries to visit the exact namespace of
+your controller. If index, default and matching Path actions are defined, then
+index will be used instead of default and Path.
- $c->forward( $c->view('TT') );
- }
+ sub index : Private { .. }
-In hello.tt:
+becomes
- [% FOREACH name IN names %]
- <strong>Hello, [% name %]!</strong><br />
- [% END %]
+ http://localhost:3000/buckets
-This allowed us to loop through each item in the arrayref, and display a
-line for each name that we have.
+=item begin
-This is the most basic usage, but Template Toolkit is quite powerful,
-and allows you to truly keep your presentation logic separate from the
-rest of your application.
+The begin action is called at the beginning of every request involving this
+namespace directly, before other matching actions are called. It can be used
+to set up variables/data for this particular part of your app. A single begin
+action is called, its always the one most relevant to the current namespace.
-=head3 $c->uri_for()
+ sub begin : Private { .. }
-One of my favorite things about Catalyst is the ability to move an
-application around without having to worry that everything is going to
-break. One of the areas that used to be a problem was with the http
-links in your template files. For example, suppose you have an
-application installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar. The links point
-to "/Calendar", "/Calendar/2005", "/Calendar/2005/10", etc. If you move
-the application to be at http://www.mydomain.com/Tools/Calendar, then
-all of those links will suddenly break.
+is called once when
-That's where $c->uri_for() comes in. This function will merge its
-parameters with either the base location for the app, or its current
-namespace. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.
+ http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
-In your template, you can use the following:
+is visited.
- <a href="[% c.uri_for('/login') %]">Login Here</a>
+=item end
-Although the parameter starts with a forward slash, this is relative to the application root, not the webserver root. This is important to remember. So, if your application is installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar, then the link would be http://www.mydomain.com/Calendar/Login. If you move your application to a different domain or path, then that link will still be correct.
+Like begin, this action is always called for the namespace it is in, after
+every other action has finished. It is commonly used to forward processing to
+the View component. A single end action is called, its always the one most
+relevant to the current namespace.
-Likewise,
- <a href="[% c.uri_for('2005','10', '24') %]">October, 24 2005</a>
+ sub end : Private { .. }
-The first parameter does NOT have a forward slash, and so it will be relative to the current namespace. If the application is installed at http://www.domain.com/Calendar. and if the template is called from MyApp::Controller::Display, then the link would become http://www.domain.com/Calendar/Display/2005/10/24.
+is called once after any actions when
-Once again, this allows you to move your application around without having to worry about broken links. But there's something else, as well. Since the links are generated by uri_for, you can use the same template file by several different controllers, and each controller will get the links that its supposed to. Since we believe in Don't Repeat Yourself, this is particularly helpful if you have common elements in your site that you want to keep in one file.
+ http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
-Further Reading:
+is visited.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst>
+=item auto
-L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst%3A%3AView%3A%3ATT>
+Lastly, the auto action is magic in that B<every> auto action in
+the chain of paths up to and including the ending namespace, will be
+called. (In contrast, only one of the begin/end/default actions will be
+called, the relevant one).
-L<http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Template>
+ package MyApp.pm;
+ sub auto : Private { .. }
-=head2 Testing
+and
-Catalyst provides a convenient way of testing your application during
-development and before deployment in a real environment.
+ sub auto : Private { .. }
-C<Catalyst::Test> makes it possible to run the same tests both locally
-(without an external daemon) and against a remote server via HTTP.
+will both be called when visiting
-=head3 Tests
+ http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
-Let's examine a skeleton application's C<t/> directory:
+=back
- mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ ls -l t/
- total 24
- -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 95 18 Dec 20:50 01app.t
- -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 190 18 Dec 20:50 02pod.t
- -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 213 18 Dec 20:50 03podcoverage.t
+=back
-=over 4
+=head3 A word of warning
-=item C<01app.t>
+Due to possible namespace conflicts with Plugins, it is advised to only put the
+pre-defined Private actions in your main MyApp.pm file, all others should go
+in a Controller module.
-Verifies that the application loads, compiles, and returns a successful
-response.
+=head3 More Information
-=item C<02pod.t>
+L<http://search.cpan.org/author/SRI/Catalyst-5.61/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Intro.pod>
-Verifies that all POD is free from errors. Only executed if the C<TEST_POD>
-environment variable is true.
+L<http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/wiki/FlowChart>
-=item C<03podcoverage.t>
+=head2 Component-based Subrequests
-Verifies that all methods/functions have POD coverage. Only executed if the
-C<TEST_POD> environment variable is true.
+See L<Catalyst::Plugin::SubRequest>.
-=back
+=head2 File uploads
-=head3 Creating tests
+=head3 Single file upload with Catalyst
- mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ cat t/01app.t | perl -ne 'printf( "%2d %s", $., $_ )'
- 1 use Test::More tests => 2;
- 2 use_ok( Catalyst::Test, 'MyApp' );
- 3
- 4 ok( request('/')->is_success );
+To implement uploads in Catalyst, you need to have a HTML form similar to
+this:
-The first line declares how many tests we are going to run, in this case
-two. The second line tests and loads our application in test mode. The
-fourth line verifies that our application returns a successful response.
+ <form action="/upload" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
+ <input type="hidden" name="form_submit" value="yes">
+ <input type="file" name="my_file">
+ <input type="submit" value="Send">
+ </form>
-C<Catalyst::Test> exports two functions, C<request> and C<get>. Each can
-take three different arguments:
+It's very important not to forget C<enctype="multipart/form-data"> in
+the form.
-=over 4
+Catalyst Controller module 'upload' action:
-=item A string which is a relative or absolute URI.
+ sub upload : Global {
+ my ($self, $c) = @_;
- request('/my/path');
- request('http://www.host.com/my/path');
+ if ( $c->request->parameters->{form_submit} eq 'yes' ) {
-=item An instance of C<URI>.
+ if ( my $upload = $c->request->upload('my_file') ) {
- request( URI->new('http://www.host.com/my/path') );
+ my $filename = $upload->filename;
+ my $target = "/tmp/upload/$filename";
-=item An instance of C<HTTP::Request>.
+ unless ( $upload->link_to($target) || $upload->copy_to($target) ) {
+ die( "Failed to copy '$filename' to '$target': $!" );
+ }
+ }
+ }
- request( HTTP::Request->new( GET => 'http://www.host.com/my/path') );
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'file_upload.html';
+ }
-=back
+=head3 Multiple file upload with Catalyst
-C<request> returns an instance of C<HTTP::Response> and C<get> returns the
-content (body) of the response.
+Code for uploading multiple files from one form needs a few changes:
-=head3 Running tests locally
+The form should have this basic structure:
- mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ CATALYST_DEBUG=0 TEST_POD=1 prove --lib lib/ t/
- t/01app............ok
- t/02pod............ok
- t/03podcoverage....ok
- All tests successful.
- Files=3, Tests=4, 2 wallclock secs ( 1.60 cusr + 0.36 csys = 1.96 CPU)
-
-C<CATALYST_DEBUG=0> ensures that debugging is off; if it's enabled you
-will see debug logs between tests.
+ <form action="/upload" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
+ <input type="hidden" name="form_submit" value="yes">
+ <input type="file" name="file1" size="50"><br>
+ <input type="file" name="file2" size="50"><br>
+ <input type="file" name="file3" size="50"><br>
+ <input type="submit" value="Send">
+ </form>
-C<TEST_POD=1> enables POD checking and coverage.
+And in the controller:
-C<prove> A command-line tool that makes it easy to run tests. You can
-find out more about it from the links below.
+ sub upload : Local {
+ my ($self, $c) = @_;
-=head3 Running tests remotely
+ if ( $c->request->parameters->{form_submit} eq 'yes' ) {
- mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ CATALYST_SERVER=http://localhost:3000/ prove --lib lib/ t/01app.t
- t/01app....ok
- All tests successful.
- Files=1, Tests=2, 0 wallclock secs ( 0.40 cusr + 0.01 csys = 0.41 CPU)
+ for my $field ( $c->req->upload ) {
-C<CATALYST_SERVER=http://localhost:3000/> is the absolute deployment URI of
-your application. In C<CGI> or C<FastCGI> it should be the host and path
-to the script.
+ my $upload = $c->req->upload($field);
+ my $filename = $upload->filename;
+ my $target = "/tmp/upload/$filename";
-=head3 C<Test::WWW::Mechanize> and Catalyst
+ unless ( $upload->link_to($target) || $upload->copy_to($target) ) {
+ die( "Failed to copy '$filename' to '$target': $!" );
+ }
+ }
+ }
-Be sure to check out C<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst>. It makes it easy to
-test HTML, forms and links. A short example of usage:
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'file_upload.html';
+ }
- use Test::More tests => 6;
- use_ok( Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst, 'MyApp' );
+C<for my $field ($c-E<gt>req->upload)> loops automatically over all file
+input fields and gets input names. After that is basic file saving code,
+just like in single file upload.
- my $mech = Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst->new;
- $mech->get_ok("http://localhost/", 'Got index page');
- $mech->title_like( qr/^MyApp on Catalyst/, 'Got right index title' );
- ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^Wiki/i ), 'Found link to Wiki' );
- ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^Mailing-List/i ), 'Found link to Mailing-List' );
- ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^IRC channel/i ), 'Found link to IRC channel' );
+Notice: C<die>ing might not be what you want to do, when an error
+occurs, but it works as an example. A better idea would be to store
+error C<$!> in $c->stash->{error} and show a custom error template
+displaying this message.
-=head3 Further Reading
+For more information about uploads and usable methods look at
+L<Catalyst::Request::Upload> and L<Catalyst::Request>.
-=over 4
+=head2 Forwarding with arguments
-=item Catalyst::Test
+Sometimes you want to pass along arguments when forwarding to another
+action. As of version 5.30, arguments can be passed in the call to
+C<forward>; in earlier versions, you can manually set the arguments in
+the Catalyst Request object:
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst/lib/Catalyst/Test.pm>
+ # version 5.30 and later:
+ $c->forward('/wherever', [qw/arg1 arg2 arg3/]);
-=item Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst
+ # pre-5.30
+ $c->req->args([qw/arg1 arg2 arg3/]);
+ $c->forward('/wherever');
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-WWW-Mechanize-Catalyst/lib/Test/WWW/Mechanize/Catalyst.pm>
+(See the L<Catalyst::Manual::Intro> Flow_Control section for more
+information on passing arguments via C<forward>.)
-=item Test::WWW::Mechanize
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-WWW-Mechanize/Mechanize.pm>
+=head1 Deployment
-=item WWW::Mechanize
+The recipes below describe aspects of the deployment process,
+including web server engines and tips to improve application efficiency.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/WWW-Mechanize/lib/WWW/Mechanize.pm>
+=head2 mod_perl Deployment
-=item LWP::UserAgent
+mod_perl is the best solution for many applications, but we'll list some pros
+and cons so you can decide for yourself. The other production deployment
+option is FastCGI, for which see below.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/LWP/UserAgent.pm>
+=head3 Pros
-=item HTML::Form
+=head4 Speed
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTML/Form.pm>
+mod_perl is very fast and your app will benefit from being loaded in memory
+within each Apache process.
-=item HTTP::Message
+=head4 Shared memory for multiple apps
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Message.pm>
+If you need to run several Catalyst apps on the same server, mod_perl will
+share the memory for common modules.
-=item HTTP::Request
+=head3 Cons
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Request.pm>
+=head4 Memory usage
-=item HTTP::Request::Common
+Since your application is fully loaded in memory, every Apache process will
+be rather large. This means a large Apache process will be tied up while
+serving static files, large files, or dealing with slow clients. For this
+reason, it is best to run a two-tiered web architecture with a lightweight
+frontend server passing dynamic requests to a large backend mod_perl
+server.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Request/Common.pm>
+=head4 Reloading
-=item HTTP::Response
+Any changes made to the core code of your app require a full Apache restart.
+Catalyst does not support Apache::Reload or StatINC. This is another good
+reason to run a frontend web server where you can set up an
+C<ErrorDocument 502> page to report that your app is down for maintenance.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Response.pm>
+=head4 Cannot run multiple versions of the same app
-=item HTTP::Status
+It is not possible to run two different versions of the same application in
+the same Apache instance because the namespaces will collide.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Status.pm>
+=head4 Setup
-=item URI
+Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about setting up mod_perl
+to run a Catalyst app.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/URI/URI.pm>
+=head4 1. Install Catalyst::Engine::Apache
-=item Test::More
+You should install the latest versions of both Catalyst and
+Catalyst::Engine::Apache. The Apache engines were separated from the
+Catalyst core in version 5.50 to allow for updates to the engine without
+requiring a new Catalyst release.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Simple/lib/Test/More.pm>
+=head4 2. Install Apache with mod_perl
-=item Test::Pod
+Both Apache 1.3 and Apache 2 are supported, although Apache 2 is highly
+recommended. With Apache 2, make sure you are using the prefork MPM and not
+the worker MPM. The reason for this is that many Perl modules are not
+thread-safe and may have problems running within the threaded worker
+environment. Catalyst is thread-safe however, so if you know what you're
+doing, you may be able to run using worker.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Pod/Pod.pm>
+In Debian, the following commands should get you going.
-=item Test::Pod::Coverage
+ apt-get install apache2-mpm-prefork
+ apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Pod-Coverage/Coverage.pm>
+=head4 3. Configure your application
-=item prove (Test::Harness)
+Every Catalyst application will automagically become a mod_perl handler
+when run within mod_perl. This makes the configuration extremely easy.
+Here is a basic Apache 2 configuration.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Harness/bin/prove>
+ PerlSwitches -I/var/www/MyApp/lib
+ PerlModule MyApp
+
+ <Location />
+ SetHandler modperl
+ PerlResponseHandler MyApp
+ </Location>
-=back
+The most important line here is C<PerlModule MyApp>. This causes mod_perl
+to preload your entire application into shared memory, including all of your
+controller, model, and view classes and configuration. If you have -Debug
+mode enabled, you will see the startup output scroll by when you first
+start Apache.
-=head2 XMLRPC
+For an example Apache 1.3 configuration, please see the documentation for
+L<Catalyst::Engine::Apache::MP13>.
-Unlike SOAP, XMLRPC is a very simple (and imo elegant) web-services
-protocol, exchanging small XML messages like these:
+=head3 Test It
-Request:
+That's it, your app is now a full-fledged mod_perl application! Try it out
+by going to http://your.server.com/.
- POST /api HTTP/1.1
- TE: deflate,gzip;q=0.3
- Connection: TE, close
- Accept: text/xml
- Accept: multipart/*
- Host: 127.0.0.1:3000
- User-Agent: SOAP::Lite/Perl/0.60
- Content-Length: 192
- Content-Type: text/xml
+=head3 Other Options
- <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
- <methodCall>
- <methodName>add</methodName>
- <params>
- <param><value><int>1</int></value></param>
- <param><value><int>2</int></value></param>
- </params>
- </methodCall>
+=head4 Non-root location
-Response:
+You may not always want to run your app at the root of your server or virtual
+host. In this case, it's a simple change to run at any non-root location
+of your choice.
- Connection: close
- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:45:55 GMT
- Content-Length: 133
- Content-Type: text/xml
- Status: 200
- X-Catalyst: 5.70
+ <Location /myapp>
+ SetHandler modperl
+ PerlResponseHandler MyApp
+ </Location>
+
+When running this way, it is best to make use of the C<uri_for> method in
+Catalyst for constructing correct links.
- <?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
- <methodResponse>
- <params>
- <param><value><int>3</int></value></param>
- </params>
- </methodResponse>
+=head4 Static file handling
-Now follow these few steps to implement the application:
+Static files can be served directly by Apache for a performance boost.
-1. Install Catalyst (5.61 or later), Catalyst::Plugin::XMLRPC (0.06 or
-later) and SOAP::Lite (for XMLRPCsh.pl).
+ DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
+ <Location /static>
+ SetHandler default-handler
+ </Location>
+
+This will let all files within root/static be handled directly by Apache. In
+a two-tiered setup, the frontend server should handle static files.
+The configuration to do this on the frontend will vary.
-2. Create an application framework:
+=head2 Catalyst on shared hosting
- % catalyst.pl MyApp
- ...
- % cd MyApp
+So, you want to put your Catalyst app out there for the whole world to
+see, but you don't want to break the bank. There is an answer - if you
+can get shared hosting with FastCGI and a shell, you can install your
+Catalyst app in a local directory on your shared host. First, run
-3. Add the XMLRPC plugin to MyApp.pm
+ perl -MCPAN -e shell
- use Catalyst qw/-Debug Static::Simple XMLRPC/;
+and go through the standard CPAN configuration process. Then exit out
+without installing anything. Next, open your .bashrc and add
-4. Add an API controller
+ export PATH=$HOME/local/bin:$HOME/local/script:$PATH
+ perlversion=`perl -v | grep 'built for' | awk '{print $4}' | sed -e 's/v//;'`
+ export PERL5LIB=$HOME/local/share/perl/$perlversion:$HOME/local/lib/perl/$perlversion:$HOME/local/lib:$PERL5LIB
- % ./script/myapp_create.pl controller API
+and log out, then back in again (or run C<". .bashrc"> if you
+prefer). Finally, edit C<.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm> and add
-5. Add a XMLRPC redispatch method and an add method with Remote
-attribute to lib/MyApp/Controller/API.pm
+ 'make_install_arg' => qq[SITEPREFIX=$ENV{HOME}/local],
+ 'makepl_arg' => qq[INSTALLDIRS=site install_base=$ENV{HOME}/local],
- sub default : Private {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
- $c->xmlrpc;
- }
+Now you can install the modules you need using CPAN as normal; they
+will be installed into your local directory, and perl will pick them
+up. Finally, change directory into the root of your virtual host and
+symlink your application's script directory in:
- sub add : Remote {
- my ( $self, $c, $a, $b ) = @_;
- return $a + $b;
- }
+ cd path/to/mydomain.com
+ ln -s ~/lib/MyApp/script script
-The default action is the entry point for each XMLRPC request. It will
-redispatch every request to methods with Remote attribute in the same
-class.
+And add the following lines to your .htaccess file (assuming the server
+is setup to handle .pl as fcgi - you may need to rename the script to
+myapp_fastcgi.fcgi and/or use a SetHandler directive):
-The C<add> method is not a traditional action; it has no private or
-public path. Only the XMLRPC dispatcher knows it exists.
+ RewriteEngine On
+ RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/?script/myapp_fastcgi.pl
+ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/$1 [PT,L]
-6. That's it! You have built your first web service. Let's test it with
-XMLRPCsh.pl (part of SOAP::Lite):
+Now C<http://mydomain.com/> should now Just Work. Congratulations, now
+you can tell your friends about your new website (or in our case, tell
+the client it's time to pay the invoice :) )
- % ./script/myapp_server.pl
- ...
- % XMLRPCsh.pl http://127.0.0.1:3000/api
- Usage: method[(parameters)]
- > add( 1, 2 )
- --- XMLRPC RESULT ---
- '3'
+=head2 FastCGI Deployment
-=head3 Tip
+FastCGI is a high-performance extension to CGI. It is suitable
+for production environments.
-Your return data type is usually auto-detected, but you can easily
-enforce a specific one.
+=head3 Pros
- sub add : Remote {
- my ( $self, $c, $a, $b ) = @_;
- return RPC::XML::int->new( $a + $b );
- }
-
-=head2 Action Types
+=head4 Speed
-=head3 Introduction
+FastCGI performs equally as well as mod_perl. Don't let the 'CGI' fool you;
+your app runs as multiple persistent processes ready to receive connections
+from the web server.
-A Catalyst application is driven by one or more Controller modules. There are
-a number of ways that Catalyst can decide which of the methods in your
-controller modules it should call. Controller methods are also called actions,
-because they determine how your catalyst application should (re-)act to any
-given URL. When the application is started up, catalyst looks at all your
-actions, and decides which URLs they map to.
+=head4 App Server
-=head3 Type attributes
+When using external FastCGI servers, your application runs as a standalone
+application server. It may be restarted independently from the web server.
+This allows for a more robust environment and faster reload times when
+pushing new app changes. The frontend server can even be configured to
+display a friendly "down for maintenance" page while the application is
+restarting.
-Each action is a normal method in your controller, except that it has an
-L<attribute|http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.7/lib/attributes.pm>
-attached. These can be one of several types.
+=head4 Load-balancing
-Assume our Controller module starts with the following package declaration:
+You can launch your application on multiple backend servers and allow the
+frontend web server to load-balance between all of them. And of course, if
+one goes down, your app continues to run fine.
- package MyApp::Controller::Buckets;
+=head4 Multiple versions of the same app
-and we are running our application on localhost, port 3000 (the test
-server default).
+Each FastCGI application is a separate process, so you can run different
+versions of the same app on a single server.
-=over 4
+=head4 Can run with threaded Apache
-=item Path
+Since your app is not running inside of Apache, the faster mpm_worker module
+can be used without worrying about the thread safety of your application.
-A Path attribute also takes an argument, this can be either a relative
-or an absolute path. A relative path will be relative to the controller
-namespace, an absolute path will represent an exact matching URL.
+=head3 Cons
- sub my_handles : Path('handles') { .. }
+=head4 More complex environment
-becomes
+With FastCGI, there are more things to monitor and more processes running
+than when using mod_perl.
- http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles
+=head3 Setup
-and
+=head4 1. Install Apache with mod_fastcgi
- sub my_handles : Path('/handles') { .. }
+mod_fastcgi for Apache is a third party module, and can be found at
+L<http://www.fastcgi.com/>. It is also packaged in many distributions,
+for example, libapache2-mod-fastcgi in Debian.
-becomes
+=head4 2. Configure your application
- http://localhost:3000/handles
+ # Serve static content directly
+ DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
+ Alias /static /var/www/MyApp/root/static
-=item Local
+ FastCgiServer /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -processes 3
+ Alias /myapp/ /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/
+
+ # Or, run at the root
+ Alias / /var/www/MyApp/script/myapp_fastcgi.pl/
+
+The above commands will launch 3 app processes and make the app available at
+/myapp/
-When using a Local attribute, no parameters are needed, instead, the name of
-the action is matched in the URL. The namespaces created by the name of the
-controller package is always part of the URL.
+=head3 Standalone server mode
- sub my_handles : Local { .. }
+While not as easy as the previous method, running your app as an external
+server gives you much more flexibility.
-becomes
+First, launch your app as a standalone server listening on a socket.
- http://localhost:3000/buckets/my_handles
+ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l /tmp/myapp.socket -n 5 -p /tmp/myapp.pid -d
+
+You can also listen on a TCP port if your web server is not on the same
+machine.
-=item Global
+ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l :8080 -n 5 -p /tmp/myapp.pid -d
+
+You will probably want to write an init script to handle starting/stopping
+of the app using the pid file.
-A Global attribute is similar to a Local attribute, except that the namespace
-of the controller is ignored, and matching starts at root.
+Now, we simply configure Apache to connect to the running server.
- sub my_handles : Global { .. }
+ # 502 is a Bad Gateway error, and will occur if the backend server is down
+ # This allows us to display a friendly static page that says "down for
+ # maintenance"
+ Alias /_errors /var/www/MyApp/root/error-pages
+ ErrorDocument 502 /_errors/502.html
-becomes
+ FastCgiExternalServer /tmp/myapp -socket /tmp/myapp.socket
+ Alias /myapp/ /tmp/myapp/
+
+ # Or, run at the root
+ Alias / /tmp/myapp/
+
+=head3 More Info
- http://localhost:3000/my_handles
+L<Catalyst::Engine::FastCGI>.
-=item Regex
+=head2 Development server deployment
-By now you should have figured that a Regex attribute is just what it sounds
-like. This one takes a regular expression, and matches starting from
-root. These differ from the rest as they can match multiple URLs.
+The development server is a mini web server written in perl. If you
+expect a low number of hits or you don't need mod_perl/FastCGI speed,
+you could use the development server as the application server with a
+lightweight proxy web server at the front. However, be aware that
+there are known issues, especially with Internet Explorer. Many of
+these issues can be dealt with by running the server with the -k
+(keepalive) option but be aware for more complex applications this may
+not be suitable. Consider using Catalyst::Engine::HTTP::POE. This
+recipe is easily adapted for POE as well.
- sub my_handles : Regex('^handles') { .. }
+=head3 Pros
-matches
+As this is an application server setup, the pros are the same as
+FastCGI (with the exception of speed).
+It is also:
- http://localhost:3000/handles
+=head4 Simple
-and
+The development server is what you create your code on, so if it works
+here, it should work in production!
- http://localhost:3000/handles_and_other_parts
+=head3 Cons
-etc.
+=head4 Speed
-=item LocalRegex
+Not as fast as mod_perl or FastCGI. Needs to fork for each request
+that comes in - make sure static files are served by the web server to
+save forking.
-A LocalRegex is similar to a Regex, except it only matches below the current
-controller namespace.
+=head3 Setup
- sub my_handles : LocalRegex(^handles') { .. }
+=head4 Start up the development server
-matches
+ script/myapp_server.pl -p 8080 -k -f -pidfile=/tmp/myapp.pid -daemon
- http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles
+You will probably want to write an init script to handle stop/starting
+the app using the pid file.
-and
+=head4 Configuring Apache
- http://localhost:3000/buckets/handles_and_other_parts
+Make sure mod_proxy is enabled and add:
-etc.
+ # Serve static content directly
+ DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
+ Alias /static /var/www/MyApp/root/static
-=item Private
+ ProxyRequests Off
+ <Proxy *>
+ Order deny,allow
+ Allow from all
+ </Proxy>
+ ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/
+ ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
-Last but not least, there is the Private attribute, which allows you to create
-your own internal actions, which can be forwarded to, but won't be matched as
-URLs.
+You can wrap the above within a VirtualHost container if you want
+different apps served on the same host.
- sub my_handles : Private { .. }
+=head2 Quick deployment: Building PAR Packages
-becomes nothing at all..
+You have an application running on your development box, but then you
+have to quickly move it to another one for
+demonstration/deployment/testing...
+
+PAR packages can save you from a lot of trouble here. They are usual Zip
+files that contain a blib tree; you can even include all prereqs and a
+perl interpreter by setting a few flags!
+
+=head3 Follow these few points to try it out!
+
+1. Install Catalyst and PAR 0.89 (or later)
+
+ % perl -MCPAN -e 'install Catalyst'
+ ...
+ % perl -MCPAN -e 'install PAR'
+ ...
+
+2. Create a application
+
+ % catalyst.pl MyApp
+ ...
+ % cd MyApp
+
+Recent versions of Catalyst (5.62 and up) include
+L<Module::Install::Catalyst>, which simplifies the process greatly. From the shell in your application directory:
+
+ % perl Makefile.PL
+ % make catalyst_par
+
+Congratulations! Your package "myapp.par" is ready, the following
+steps are just optional.
+
+3. Test your PAR package with "parl" (no typo)
+
+ % parl myapp.par
+ Usage:
+ [parl] myapp[.par] [script] [arguments]
+
+ Examples:
+ parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl -r
+ myapp myapp_cgi.pl
+
+ Available scripts:
+ myapp_cgi.pl
+ myapp_create.pl
+ myapp_fastcgi.pl
+ myapp_server.pl
+ myapp_test.pl
+
+ % parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl
+ You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000
+
+Yes, this nifty little starter application gets automatically included.
+You can also use "catalyst_par_script('myapp_server.pl')" to set a
+default script to execute.
+
+6. Want to create a binary that includes the Perl interpreter?
+
+ % pp -o myapp myapp.par
+ % ./myapp myapp_server.pl
+ You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000
+
+=head2 Serving static content
+
+Serving static content in Catalyst used to be somewhat tricky; the use
+of L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple> makes everything much easier.
+This plugin will automatically serve your static content during development,
+but allows you to easily switch to Apache (or other server) in a
+production environment.
+
+=head3 Introduction to Static::Simple
+
+Static::Simple is a plugin that will help to serve static content for your
+application. By default, it will serve most types of files, excluding some
+standard Template Toolkit extensions, out of your B<root> file directory. All
+files are served by path, so if B<images/me.jpg> is requested, then
+B<root/images/me.jpg> is found and served.
+
+=head3 Usage
+
+Using the plugin is as simple as setting your use line in MyApp.pm to include:
+
+ use Catalyst qw/Static::Simple/;
+
+and already files will be served.
+
+=head3 Configuring
+
+Static content is best served from a single directory within your root
+directory. Having many different directories such as C<root/css> and
+C<root/images> requires more code to manage, because you must separately
+identify each static directory--if you decide to add a C<root/js>
+directory, you'll need to change your code to account for it. In
+contrast, keeping all static directories as subdirectories of a main
+C<root/static> directory makes things much easier to manage. Here's an
+example of a typical root directory structure:
+
+ root/
+ root/content.tt
+ root/controller/stuff.tt
+ root/header.tt
+ root/static/
+ root/static/css/main.css
+ root/static/images/logo.jpg
+ root/static/js/code.js
-Catalyst also predefines some special Private actions, which you can override,
-these are:
+
+All static content lives under C<root/static>, with everything else being
+Template Toolkit files.
=over 4
-=item default
+=item Include Path
-The default action will be called, if no other matching action is found. If
-you don't have one of these in your namespace, or any sub part of your
-namespace, you'll get an error page instead. If you want to find out where it
-was the user was trying to go, you can look in the request object using
-C<< $c->req->path >>.
+You may of course want to change the default locations, and make
+Static::Simple look somewhere else, this is as easy as:
- sub default : Private { .. }
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{include_path} = [
+ MyApp->config->{root},
+ '/path/to/my/files'
+ ];
+
+When you override include_path, it will not automatically append the
+normal root path, so you need to add it yourself if you still want
+it. These will be searched in order given, and the first matching file
+served.
+
+=item Static directories
+
+If you want to force some directories to be only static, you can set
+them using paths relative to the root dir, or regular expressions:
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{dirs} = [
+ 'static',
+ qr/^(images|css)/,
+ ];
+
+=item File extensions
+
+By default, the following extensions are not served (that is, they will
+be processed by Catalyst): B<tmpl, tt, tt2, html, xhtml>. This list can
+be replaced easily:
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_extensions} = [
+ qw/tmpl tt tt2 html xhtml/
+ ];
+
+=item Ignoring directories
+
+Entire directories can be ignored. If used with include_path,
+directories relative to the include_path dirs will also be ignored:
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_dirs} = [ qw/tmpl css/ ];
+
+=back
+
+=head3 More information
+
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Plugin-Static-Simple/>
+
+=head3 Serving manually with the Static plugin with HTTP::Daemon (myapp_server.pl)
+
+In some situations you might want to control things more directly,
+using L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static>.
+
+In your main application class (MyApp.pm), load the plugin:
+
+ use Catalyst qw/-Debug FormValidator Static OtherPlugin/;
+
+You will also need to make sure your end method does I<not> forward
+static content to the view, perhaps like this:
+
+ sub end : Private {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ $c->forward( 'MyApp::View::TT' )
+ unless ( $c->res->body || !$c->stash->{template} );
+ }
+
+This code will only forward to the view if a template has been
+previously defined by a controller and if there is not already data in
+C<$c-E<gt>res-E<gt>body>.
+
+Next, create a controller to handle requests for the /static path. Use
+the Helper to save time. This command will create a stub controller as
+C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Static.pm>.
+
+ $ script/myapp_create.pl controller Static
+
+Edit the file and add the following methods:
+
+ # serve all files under /static as static files
+ sub default : Path('/static') {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ # Optional, allow the browser to cache the content
+ $c->res->headers->header( 'Cache-Control' => 'max-age=86400' );
+
+ $c->serve_static; # from Catalyst::Plugin::Static
+ }
+
+ # also handle requests for /favicon.ico
+ sub favicon : Path('/favicon.ico') {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ $c->serve_static;
+ }
+
+You can also define a different icon for the browser to use instead of
+favicon.ico by using this in your HTML header:
+
+ <link rel="icon" href="/static/myapp.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
+
+=head3 Common problems with the Static plugin
+
+The Static plugin makes use of the C<shared-mime-info> package to
+automatically determine MIME types. This package is notoriously
+difficult to install, especially on win32 and OS X. For OS X the easiest
+path might be to install Fink, then use C<apt-get install
+shared-mime-info>. Restart the server, and everything should be fine.
+
+Make sure you are using the latest version (>= 0.16) for best
+results. If you are having errors serving CSS files, or if they get
+served as text/plain instead of text/css, you may have an outdated
+shared-mime-info version. You may also wish to simply use the following
+code in your Static controller:
+
+ if ($c->req->path =~ /css$/i) {
+ $c->serve_static( "text/css" );
+ } else {
+ $c->serve_static;
+ }
+
+=head3 Serving Static Files with Apache
+
+When using Apache, you can bypass Catalyst and any Static
+plugins/controllers controller by intercepting requests for the
+C<root/static> path at the server level. All that is required is to
+define a DocumentRoot and add a separate Location block for your static
+content. Here is a complete config for this application under mod_perl
+1.x:
+
+ <Perl>
+ use lib qw(/var/www/MyApp/lib);
+ </Perl>
+ PerlModule MyApp
+
+ <VirtualHost *>
+ ServerName myapp.example.com
+ DocumentRoot /var/www/MyApp/root
+ <Location />
+ SetHandler perl-script
+ PerlHandler MyApp
+ </Location>
+ <LocationMatch "/(static|favicon.ico)">
+ SetHandler default-handler
+ </LocationMatch>
+ </VirtualHost>
+
+And here's a simpler example that'll get you started:
+
+ Alias /static/ "/my/static/files/"
+ <Location "/static">
+ SetHandler none
+ </Location>
+
+=head2 Caching
+
+Catalyst makes it easy to employ several different types of caching to
+speed up your applications.
+
+=head3 Cache Plugins
+
+There are three wrapper plugins around common CPAN cache modules:
+Cache::FastMmap, Cache::FileCache, and Cache::Memcached. These can be
+used to cache the result of slow operations.
+
+This very page you're viewing makes use of the FileCache plugin to cache the
+rendered XHTML version of the source POD document. This is an ideal
+application for a cache because the source document changes infrequently but
+may be viewed many times.
+
+ use Catalyst qw/Cache::FileCache/;
+
+ ...
+
+ use File::stat;
+ sub render_pod : Local {
+ my ( self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ # the cache is keyed on the filename and the modification time
+ # to check for updates to the file.
+ my $file = $c->path_to( 'root', '2005', '11.pod' );
+ my $mtime = ( stat $file )->mtime;
+
+ my $cached_pod = $c->cache->get("$file $mtime");
+ if ( !$cached_pod ) {
+ $cached_pod = do_slow_pod_rendering();
+ # cache the result for 12 hours
+ $c->cache->set( "$file $mtime", $cached_pod, '12h' );
+ }
+ $c->stash->{pod} = $cached_pod;
+ }
+
+We could actually cache the result forever, but using a value such as 12 hours
+allows old entries to be automatically expired when they are no longer needed.
+
+=head3 Page Caching
+
+Another method of caching is to cache the entire HTML page. While this is
+traditionally handled by a front-end proxy server like Squid, the Catalyst
+PageCache plugin makes it trivial to cache the entire output from
+frequently-used or slow actions.
+
+Many sites have a busy content-filled front page that might look something
+like this. It probably takes a while to process, and will do the exact same
+thing for every single user who views the page.
+
+ sub front_page : Path('/') {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ $c->forward( 'get_news_articles' );
+ $c->forward( 'build_lots_of_boxes' );
+ $c->forward( 'more_slow_stuff' );
+
+ $c->stash->{template} = 'index.tt';
+ }
+
+We can add the PageCache plugin to speed things up.
+
+ use Catalyst qw/Cache::FileCache PageCache/;
+
+ sub front_page : Path ('/') {
+ my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+
+ $c->cache_page( 300 );
+
+ # same processing as above
+ }
+
+Now the entire output of the front page, from <html> to </html>, will be
+cached for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the next request will rebuild the
+page and it will be re-cached.
+
+Note that the page cache is keyed on the page URI plus all parameters, so
+requests for / and /?foo=bar will result in different cache items. Also,
+only GET requests will be cached by the plugin.
+
+You can even get that front-end Squid proxy to help out by enabling HTTP
+headers for the cached page.
+
+ MyApp->config->{page_cache}->{set_http_headers} = 1;
+
+This would now set the following headers so proxies and browsers may cache
+the content themselves.
+
+ Cache-Control: max-age=($expire_time - time)
+ Expires: $expire_time
+ Last-Modified: $cache_created_time
+
+=head3 Template Caching
+
+Template Toolkit provides support for caching compiled versions of your
+templates. To enable this in Catalyst, use the following configuration.
+TT will cache compiled templates keyed on the file mtime, so changes will
+still be automatically detected.
+
+ package MyApp::View::TT;
+
+ use strict;
+ use warnings;
+ use base 'Catalyst::View::TT';
+
+ __PACKAGE__->config(
+ COMPILE_DIR => '/tmp/template_cache',
+ );
+
+ 1;
+
+=head3 More Info
+
+See the documentation for each cache plugin for more details and other
+available configuration options.
+
+L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::FastMmap>
+L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::FileCache>
+L<Catalyst::Plugin::Cache::Memcached>
+L<Catalyst::Plugin::PageCache>
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Template-Toolkit/lib/Template/Manual/Config.pod#Caching_and_Compiling_Options>
-works for all unknown URLs, in this controller namespace, or every one if put
-directly into MyApp.pm.
+=head1 Testing
-=item index
+Testing is an integral part of the web application development
+process. Tests make multi developer teams easier to coordinate, and
+they help ensure that there are no nasty surprises after upgrades or
+alterations.
-The index action is called when someone tries to visit the exact namespace of
-your controller. If index, default and matching Path actions are defined, then
-index will be used instead of default and Path.
+=head2 Testing
- sub index : Private { .. }
+Catalyst provides a convenient way of testing your application during
+development and before deployment in a real environment.
-becomes
+C<Catalyst::Test> makes it possible to run the same tests both locally
+(without an external daemon) and against a remote server via HTTP.
- http://localhost:3000/buckets
+=head3 Tests
-=item begin
+Let's examine a skeleton application's C<t/> directory:
-The begin action is called at the beginning of every request involving this
-namespace directly, before other matching actions are called. It can be used
-to set up variables/data for this particular part of your app. A single begin
-action is called, its always the one most relevant to the current namespace.
+ mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ ls -l t/
+ total 24
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 95 18 Dec 20:50 01app.t
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 190 18 Dec 20:50 02pod.t
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 chansen chansen 213 18 Dec 20:50 03podcoverage.t
- sub begin : Private { .. }
+=over 4
-is called once when
+=item C<01app.t>
- http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
+Verifies that the application loads, compiles, and returns a successful
+response.
-is visited.
+=item C<02pod.t>
-=item end
+Verifies that all POD is free from errors. Only executed if the C<TEST_POD>
+environment variable is true.
-Like begin, this action is always called for the namespace it is in, after
-every other action has finished. It is commonly used to forward processing to
-the View component. A single end action is called, its always the one most
-relevant to the current namespace.
+=item C<03podcoverage.t>
+Verifies that all methods/functions have POD coverage. Only executed if the
+C<TEST_POD> environment variable is true.
- sub end : Private { .. }
+=back
-is called once after any actions when
+=head3 Creating tests
- http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
+ mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ cat t/01app.t | perl -ne 'printf( "%2d %s", $., $_ )'
+ 1 use Test::More tests => 2;
+ 2 use_ok( Catalyst::Test, 'MyApp' );
+ 3
+ 4 ok( request('/')->is_success );
-is visited.
+The first line declares how many tests we are going to run, in this case
+two. The second line tests and loads our application in test mode. The
+fourth line verifies that our application returns a successful response.
-=item auto
+C<Catalyst::Test> exports two functions, C<request> and C<get>. Each can
+take three different arguments:
-Lastly, the auto action is magic in that B<every> auto action in
-the chain of paths up to and including the ending namespace, will be
-called. (In contrast, only one of the begin/end/default actions will be
-called, the relevant one).
+=over 4
- package MyApp.pm;
- sub auto : Private { .. }
+=item A string which is a relative or absolute URI.
-and
+ request('/my/path');
+ request('http://www.host.com/my/path');
- sub auto : Private { .. }
+=item An instance of C<URI>.
-will both be called when visiting
+ request( URI->new('http://www.host.com/my/path') );
- http://localhost:3000/bucket/(anything)?
+=item An instance of C<HTTP::Request>.
-=back
+ request( HTTP::Request->new( GET => 'http://www.host.com/my/path') );
=back
-=head3 A word of warning
-
-Due to possible namespace conflicts with Plugins, it is advised to only put the
-pre-defined Private actions in your main MyApp.pm file, all others should go
-in a Controller module.
-
-=head3 More Information
+C<request> returns an instance of C<HTTP::Response> and C<get> returns the
+content (body) of the response.
-L<http://search.cpan.org/author/SRI/Catalyst-5.61/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Intro.pod>
+=head3 Running tests locally
-L<http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/wiki/FlowChart>
+ mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ CATALYST_DEBUG=0 TEST_POD=1 prove --lib lib/ t/
+ t/01app............ok
+ t/02pod............ok
+ t/03podcoverage....ok
+ All tests successful.
+ Files=3, Tests=4, 2 wallclock secs ( 1.60 cusr + 0.36 csys = 1.96 CPU)
+
+C<CATALYST_DEBUG=0> ensures that debugging is off; if it's enabled you
+will see debug logs between tests.
+C<TEST_POD=1> enables POD checking and coverage.
-=head2 Authorization
+C<prove> A command-line tool that makes it easy to run tests. You can
+find out more about it from the links below.
-=head3 Introduction
+=head3 Running tests remotely
-Authorization is the step that comes after authentication. Authentication
-establishes that the user agent is really representing the user we think it's
-representing, and then authorization determines what this user is allowed to
-do.
+ mundus:~/MyApp chansen$ CATALYST_SERVER=http://localhost:3000/ prove --lib lib/ t/01app.t
+ t/01app....ok
+ All tests successful.
+ Files=1, Tests=2, 0 wallclock secs ( 0.40 cusr + 0.01 csys = 0.41 CPU)
-=head3 Role Based Access Control
+C<CATALYST_SERVER=http://localhost:3000/> is the absolute deployment URI of
+your application. In C<CGI> or C<FastCGI> it should be the host and path
+to the script.
-Under role based access control each user is allowed to perform any number of
-roles. For example, at a zoo no one but specially trained personnel can enter
-the moose cage (Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretty nasti!). For example:
+=head3 C<Test::WWW::Mechanize> and Catalyst
- package Zoo::Controller::MooseCage;
+Be sure to check out C<Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst>. It makes it easy to
+test HTML, forms and links. A short example of usage:
- sub feed_moose : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+ use Test::More tests => 6;
+ use_ok( Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst, 'MyApp' );
- $c->model( "Moose" )->eat( $c->req->param("food") );
- }
+ my $mech = Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst->new;
+ $mech->get_ok("http://localhost/", 'Got index page');
+ $mech->title_like( qr/^MyApp on Catalyst/, 'Got right index title' );
+ ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^Wiki/i ), 'Found link to Wiki' );
+ ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^Mailing-List/i ), 'Found link to Mailing-List' );
+ ok( $mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/^IRC channel/i ), 'Found link to IRC channel' );
-With this action, anyone can just come into the moose cage and feed the moose,
-which is a very dangerous thing. We need to restrict this action, so that only
-a qualified moose feeder can perform that action.
+=head3 Further Reading
-The Authorization::Roles plugin let's us perform role based access control
-checks. Let's load it:
+=over 4
- use Catalyst qw/
- Authentication # yadda yadda
- Authorization::Roles
- /;
+=item Catalyst::Test
-And now our action should look like this:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst/lib/Catalyst/Test.pm>
- sub feed_moose : Local {
- my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
+=item Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst
- if ( $c->check_roles( "moose_feeder" ) ) {
- $c->model( "Moose" )->eat( $c->req->param("food") );
- } else {
- $c->stash->{error} = "unauthorized";
- }
- }
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-WWW-Mechanize-Catalyst/lib/Test/WWW/Mechanize/Catalyst.pm>
-This checks C<< $c->user >>, and only if the user has B<all> the roles in the
-list, a true value is returned.
+=item Test::WWW::Mechanize
-C<check_roles> has a sister method, C<assert_roles>, which throws an exception
-if any roles are missing.
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-WWW-Mechanize/Mechanize.pm>
-Some roles that might actually make sense in, say, a forum application:
+=item WWW::Mechanize
-=over 4
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/WWW-Mechanize/lib/WWW/Mechanize.pm>
-=item *
+=item LWP::UserAgent
-administrator
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/LWP/UserAgent.pm>
-=item *
+=item HTML::Form
-moderator
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTML/Form.pm>
-=back
+=item HTTP::Message
-each with a distinct task (system administration versus content administration).
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Message.pm>
-=head3 Access Control Lists
+=item HTTP::Request
-Checking for roles all the time can be tedious and error prone.
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Request.pm>
-The Authorization::ACL plugin let's us declare where we'd like checks to be
-done automatically for us.
+=item HTTP::Request::Common
-For example, we may want to completely block out anyone who isn't a
-C<moose_feeder> from the entire C<MooseCage> controller:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Request/Common.pm>
- Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", [qw/moose_feeder/] );
+=item HTTP::Response
-The role list behaves in the same way as C<check_roles>. However, the ACL
-plugin isn't limited to just interacting with the Roles plugin. We can use a
-code reference instead. For example, to allow either moose trainers or moose
-feeders into the moose cage, we can create a more complex check:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Response.pm>
- Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", sub {
- my $c = shift;
- $c->check_roles( "moose_trainer" ) || $c->check_roles( "moose_feeder" );
- });
+=item HTTP::Status
-The more specific a role, the earlier it will be checked. Let's say moose
-feeders are now restricted to only the C<feed_moose> action, while moose
-trainers get access everywhere:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lib/HTTP/Status.pm>
- Zoo->deny_access_unless( "/moose_cage", [qw/moose_trainer/] );
- Zoo->allow_access_if( "/moose_cage/feed_moose", [qw/moose_feeder/]);
+=item URI
-When the C<feed_moose> action is accessed the second check will be made. If the
-user is a C<moose_feeder>, then access will be immediately granted. Otherwise,
-the next rule in line will be tested - the one checking for a C<moose_trainer>.
-If this rule is not satisfied, access will be immediately denied.
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/URI/URI.pm>
-Rules applied to the same path will be checked in the order they were added.
+=item Test::More
-Lastly, handling access denial events is done by creating an C<access_denied>
-private action:
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Simple/lib/Test/More.pm>
- sub access_denied : Private {
- my ( $self, $c, $action ) = @_;
+=item Test::Pod
-
- }
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Pod/Pod.pm>
-This action works much like auto, in that it is inherited across namespaces
-(not like object oriented code). This means that the C<access_denied> action
-which is B<nearest> to the action which was blocked will be triggered.
+=item Test::Pod::Coverage
-If this action does not exist, an error will be thrown, which you can clean up
-in your C<end> private action instead.
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Pod-Coverage/Coverage.pm>
-Also, it's important to note that if you restrict access to "/" then C<end>,
-C<default>, etc will also be restricted.
+=item prove (Test::Harness)
- MyApp->acl_allow_root_internals;
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Harness/bin/prove>
-will create rules that permit access to C<end>, C<begin>, and C<auto> in the
-root of your app (but not in any other controller).
+=back
=head3 More Information
=head1 AUTHORS
-Sebastian Riedel, C<sri@oook.de>
-Danijel Milicevic, C<me@danijel.de>
-Viljo Marrandi, C<vilts@yahoo.com>
-Marcus Ramberg, C<mramberg@cpan.org>
-Jesse Sheidlower, C<jester@panix.com>
-Andy Grundman, C<andy@hybridized.org>
-Chisel Wright, C<pause@herlpacker.co.uk>
-Will Hawes, C<info@whawes.co.uk>
-Gavin Henry, C<ghenry@perl.me.uk>
+Sebastian Riedel C<sri@oook.de>
+
+Danijel Milicevic C<me@danijel.de>
+Viljo Marrandi C<vilts@yahoo.com>
+
+Marcus Ramberg C<mramberg@cpan.org>
+
+Jesse Sheidlower C<jester@panix.com>
+
+Andy Grundman C<andy@hybridized.org>
+
+Chisel Wright C<pause@herlpacker.co.uk>
+
+Will Hawes C<info@whawes.co.uk>
+
+Gavin Henry C<ghenry@perl.me.uk>
+
+Kieren Diment C<kd@totaldatasolution.com>
=head1 COPYRIGHT
-This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+This document is free, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
+
projects / catagits/Catalyst-Runtime.git / blobdiff