[catagits/Catalyst-Manual.git] / lib / Catalyst / Manual / Tutorial / MoreCatalystBasics.pod

=head1 NAME

Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::MoreCatalystBasics - Catalyst Tutorial - Part 3: More Catalyst Application Development Basics


=head1 OVERVIEW

This is B<Part 3 of 10> for the Catalyst tutorial.

L<Tutorial Overview|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial>

=over 4

=item 1

L<Introduction|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Intro>

=item 2

L<Catalyst Basics|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::CatalystBasics>

=item 3

B<More Catalyst Basics>

=item 4

L<Basic CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::BasicCRUD>

=item 5

L<Authentication|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Authentication>

=item 6

L<Authorization|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Authorization>

=item 7

L<Debugging|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Debugging>

=item 8

L<Testing|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Testing>

=item 9

L<Advanced CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::AdvancedCRUD>

=item 10

L<Appendices|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Appendices>

=back


=head1 DESCRIPTION

This part of the tutorial builds on the work done in Part 2 to explore 
some features that are more typical of "real world" web applications. 
From this part of the tutorial onward, we will be building a simple 
book database application.  Although the application will be too 
limited to be of use to anyone, it should provide a basic environment 
where we can explore a variety of features used in virtually all web 
applications.

You can checkout the source code for this example from the catalyst
subversion repository as per the instructions in
L<Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Intro>


=head1 CREATE A NEW APPLICATION

The remainder of the tutorial will build an application call C<MyApp>. 
Use the Catalyst C<catalyst.pl> script to initialize the framework for 
an application called C<MyApp> (make sure you aren't still inside the 
directory of the C<Hello> application from the previous part of the 
tutorial):

    $ catalyst.pl MyApp
    created "MyApp"
    created "MyApp/script"
    created "MyApp/lib"
    created "MyApp/root"
    ...
    created "MyApp/script/myapp_create.pl"
    $ cd MyApp

This creates a similar skeletal structure to what we saw in Part 2 of 
the tutorial, except with C<MyApp> or C<myapp> substituted for 
C<Hello> and C<hello>.


=head1 EDIT THE LIST OF CATALYST PLUGINS

One of the greatest benefits of Catalyst is that it has such a large
library of plugins available.  Plugins are used to seamlessly integrate
existing Perl modules into the overall Catalyst framework.  In general,
they do this by adding additional methods to the C<context> object
(generally written as C<$c>) that Catalyst passes to every component
throughout the framework.

By default, Catalyst enables three plugins/flags:

=over 4

=item * 

C<-Debug> Flag

Enables the Catalyst debug output you saw when we started the
C<script/myapp_server.pl> development server earlier.  You can remove
this plugin when you place your application into production.

As you may have noticed, C<-Debug> is not a plugin, but a I<flag>.
Although most of the items specified on the C<use Catalyst> line of your
application class will be plugins, Catalyst supports a limited number of
flag options (of these, C<-Debug> is the most common).  See the
documentation for C<Catalyst.pm> to get details on other flags 
(currently C<-Engine>, C<-Home>, and C<-Log>).

If you prefer, you can use the C<$c-E<gt>debug> method to enable debug
messages.

B<TIP>: Depending on your needs, it can be helpful to permanently
remove C<-Debug> from C<lib/MyApp.pm> and then use the C<-d> option
to C<script/myapp_server.pl> to re-enable it just for the development
server.  We will not be using that approach in the tutorial, but feel 
free to make use of it in your own projects.

=item *

L<Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader|Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader>

C<ConfigLoader> provides an automatic way to load configurable
parameters for your application from a central
L<Config::General|Config::General> file (versus having the values
hard-coded inside your Perl modules).  Config::General uses syntax
very similar to Apache configuration files.  We will see how to use
this feature of Catalyst during the authentication and authorization
sections (Part 5 and Part 6).

=item *

L<Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple|Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple>

C<Static::Simple> provides an easy method of serving static content such
as images and CSS files under the development server.

=back

To modify the list of plugins, edit C<lib/MyApp.pm> (this file is
generally referred to as your I<application class>) and delete the line
with:

    use Catalyst qw/-Debug ConfigLoader Static::Simple/;

Replace it with:

    use Catalyst qw/
            -Debug
            ConfigLoader
            Static::Simple
            
            StackTrace
            /;

This tells Catalyst to start using one new plugin:

=over 4

=item * 

L<Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace|Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace>

Adds a stack trace to the standard Catalyst "debug screen" (this is the
screen Catalyst sends to your browser when an error occurs).

Note: L<StackTrace|Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace> output appears in your
browser, not in the console window from which you're running your
application, which is where logging output usually goes.

=back

Note that when specifying plugins on the C<use Catalyst> line, you can
omit C<Catalyst::Plugin::> from the name.  Additionally, you can spread
the plugin names across multiple lines as shown here, or place them all
on one (or more) lines as with the default configuration.


=head1 CREATE A CATALYST CONTROLLER

As discussed earlier, controllers are where you write methods that 
interact with user input.  Typically, controller methods respond to 
C<GET> and C<POST> messages from the user's web browser.

Use the Catalyst C<create> script to add a controller for book-related
actions:

    $ script/myapp_create.pl controller Books
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Controller"
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t/controller_Books.t"

Then edit C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm> and add the following method
to the controller:

    =head2 list
    
    Fetch all book objects and pass to books/list.tt2 in stash to be displayed
    
    =cut
     
    sub list : Local {
        # Retrieve the usual Perl OO '$self' for this object. $c is the Catalyst
        # 'Context' that's used to 'glue together' the various components
        # that make up the application
        my ($self, $c) = @_;
    
        # Retrieve all of the book records as book model objects and store in the
        # stash where they can be accessed by the TT template
        $c->stash->{books} = [$c->model('MyAppDB::Books')->all];
        
        # Set the TT template to use.  You will almost always want to do this
        # in your action methods (action methods respond to user input in
        # your controllers).
        $c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';
    }

B<Note:> This won't actually work yet since you haven't set up your 
model yet.

B<Note:> Programmers experienced with object-oriented Perl should 
recognize C<$self> as a reference to the object where this method was 
called.  On the other hand, C<$c> will be new to many Perl programmers 
who have not used Catalyst before (it's sometimes written as 
C<$context>).  The Context object is automatically passed to all 
Catalyst components.  It is used to pass information between 
components and provide access to Catalyst and plugin functionality.

B<TIP>: You may see the C<$c-E<gt>model('MyAppDB::Book')> used above
written as C<$c-E<gt>model('MyAppDB')-E<gt>resultset('Book)>.  The two
are equivalent.

B<Note:> Catalyst actions are regular Perl methods, but they make use 
of Nicholas Clark's C<attributes> module (that's the C<: Local> next 
to the C<sub list> in the code above) to provide additional 
information to the Catalyst dispatcher logic.  Many newer Catalyst 
applications are switching to the use of "Literal" C<: Path> actions 
and C<Args> attribute in lieu of C<: Local> and C<: Private>.  For 
example, C<sub any_method : Path Args(0)> can be used instead of 
C<sub index :Private> (because no path was supplied to C<Path> it 
matches the "empty" URL in the namespace of that module... the same 
thing C<sub index> would do) or C<sub list : Path('list') Args(0)> 
could be used instead of the C<sub list : Local> above (the C<list> 
argument to C<Path> would make it match on the URL C<list> under 
C<books>, the namespace of the current module).  See "Action Types" in 
L<Catalyst::Manual::Intro|Catalyst::Manual::Intro> as well as Part 5 
of this tutorial (Authentication) for additional information.  Another 
popular but more advanced feature is C<Chained> actions that allow a 
single URL to "chain together" multiple action method calls, each with 
an appropriate number of arguments (see
L<Catalyst::DispatchType::Chained|Catalyst::DispatchType::Chained>
for details).


=head1 CATALYST VIEWS

As mentioned in Part 2 of the tutorial, views are where you render 
output, typically for display in the user's web browser, but also 
possibly using other display output- generation systems.  As with 
virtually every aspect of Catalyst, options abound when it comes to 
the specific view technology you adopt inside your application. 
However, most Catalyst applications use the Template Toolkit, known as 
TT (for more information on TT, see L<http://www.template-
toolkit.org>). Other popular view technologies include Mason 
(L<http://www.masonhq.com> and L<http://www.masonbook.com>) and 
L<HTML::Template|HTML::Template> (L<http://html-
template.sourceforge.net>).

=head2 Create a Catalyst View Using C<TTSite>

When using TT for the Catalyst view, there are two main helper scripts:

=over 4

=item *

L<Catalyst::Helper::View::TT|Catalyst::Helper::View::TT>

=item *

L<Catalyst::Helper::View::TTSite|Catalyst::Helper::View::TTSite>

=back

Both are similar, but C<TT> merely creates the C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>
file and leaves the creation of any hierarchical template organization
entirely up to you. (It also creates a C<t/view_TT.t> file for testing;
test cases will be discussed in Part 8). The C<TTSite> helper creates a
modular and hierarchical view layout with separate Template Toolkit (TT)
files for common header and footer information, configuration values, a
CSS stylesheet, and more.

While TTSite is useful to bootstrap a project, we recommend that
unless you know what you're doing or want to pretty much use the
supplied templates as is, that you use the plain Template Toolkit view
when starting a project from scratch.  This is because TTSite can be
tricky to customize.  Additionally TT contains constructs that you
need to learn yourself if you're going to be a serious user of TT.
Our experience suggests that you're better off learning these from
scratch.  We use TTSite here precisely because it is useful for
bootstrap/prototype purposes.

Enter the following command to enable the C<TTSite> style of view
rendering for this tutorial:

    $ script/myapp_create.pl view TT TTSite
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/View"
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../root/lib"
    ...
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../root/src/ttsite.css"

This puts a number of files in the C<root/lib> and C<root/src>
directories that can be used to customize the look and feel of your
application.  Also take a look at C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm> for config
values set by the C<TTSite> helper.

B<TIP>: Note that TTSite does one thing that could confuse people who
are used to the normal C<TT> Catalyst view: it redefines the Catalyst
context object in templates from its usual C<c> to C<Catalyst>. When
looking at other Catalyst examples, remember that they almost always use
C<c>.  Note that Catalyst and TT I<do not complain> when you use the
wrong name to access the context object...TT simply outputs blanks for
that bogus logic (see next tip to change this behavior with TT C<DEBUG>
options).  Finally, be aware that this change in name I<only>
applies to how the context object is accessed inside your TT templates;
your controllers will continue to use C<$c> (or whatever name you use
when fetching the reference from C<@_> inside your methods). (You can
change back to the "default" behavior be removing the C<CATALYST_VAR>
line from C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>, but you will also have to edit
C<root/lib/config/main> and C<root/lib/config/url>.  If you do this, be
careful not to have a collision between your own C<c> variable and the
Catalyst C<c> variable.)

B<TIP>: When troubleshooting TT it can be helpful to enable variable
C<DEBUG> options.  You can do this in a Catalyst environment by adding
a C<DEBUG> line to the C<__PACKAGE__->config> declaration in 
C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>:

    __PACKAGE__->config({
        CATALYST_VAR => 'Catalyst',
        ...
        DEBUG        => 'undef',
        ...
    });

B<Note:> C<__PACKAGE__> is just a shorthand way of referencing the name
of the package where it is used.  Therefore, in C<TT.pm>,
C<__PACKAGE__> is equivalent to C<TT>.

There are a variety of options you can use, such as 'undef', 'all', 
'service', 'context', 'parser', 'provider', and 'service'.  See
L<Template::Constants> for more information (remove the C<DEBUG_>
portion of the name shown in the TT docs and convert to lower case
for use inside Catalyst).

B<NOTE:> B<Please be sure to disable TT debug options before 
continuing the tutorial> (especially the 'undef' option -- leaving
this enabled will conflict with several of the conventions used
by this tutorial and TTSite to leave some variables undefined
on purpose).


=head2 Globally Customize Every View

When using TTSite, files in the subdirectories of C<root/lib> can be
used to make changes that will appear in every view.  For example, to
display optional status and error messages in every view, edit
C<root/lib/site/layout>, updating it to match the following (the two HTML
C<span> elements are new):

    <div id="header">[% PROCESS site/header %]</div>
    
    <div id="content">
    <span class="message">[% status_msg %]</span>
    <span class="error">[% error_msg %]</span>
    [% content %]
    </div>
    
    <div id="footer">[% PROCESS site/footer %]</div>

If we set either message in the Catalyst stash (e.g.,
C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{status_msg} = 'Request was successful!'>) it will
be displayed whenever any view used by that request is rendered.  The
C<message> and C<error> CSS styles are automatically defined in
C<root/src/ttsite.css> and can be customized to suit your needs.

B<Note:> The Catalyst stash only lasts for a single HTTP request.  If
you need to retain information across requests you can use
L<Catalyst::Plugin::Session|Catalyst::Plugin::Session> (we will use
Catalyst sessions in the Authentication part of the tutorial).


=head2 Create a TT Template Page

To add a new page of content to the TTSite view hierarchy, just create a
new C<.tt2> file in C<root/src>.  Only include HTML markup that goes
inside the HTML <body> and </body> tags, TTSite will use the contents of
C<root/lib/site> to add the top and bottom.

First create a directory for book-related TT templates:

    $ mkdir root/src/books

Then create C<root/src/books/list.tt2> in your editor and enter:

    [% # This is a TT comment.  The '-' at the end "chomps" the newline.  You won't -%]
    [% # see this "chomping" in your browser because HTML ignores blank lines, but  -%]
    [% # it WILL eliminate a blank line if you view the HTML source.  It's purely   -%]
    [%- # optional, but both the beginning and the ending TT tags support chomping. -%]
    
    [% # Provide a title to root/lib/site/header -%]
    [% META title = 'Book List' -%]
    
    <table>
    <tr><th>Title</th><th>Rating</th><th>Author(s)</th></tr>
    [% # Display each book in a table row %]
    [% FOREACH book IN books -%]
      <tr>
        <td>[% book.title %]</td>
        <td>[% book.rating %]</td>
      </tr>
    [% END -%]
    </table>

As indicated by the inline comments above, the C<META title> line uses
TT's META feature to provide a title to C<root/lib/site/header>.
Meanwhile, the outer C<FOREACH> loop iterates through each C<book> model
object and prints the C<title> and C<rating> fields.  An inner
C<FOREACH> loop prints the last name of each author in a comma-separated
list within a single table cell.

If you are new to TT, the C<[%> and C<%]> tags are used to delimit TT
code.  TT supports a wide variety of directives for "calling" other
files, looping, conditional logic, etc.  In general, TT simplifies the
usual range of Perl operators down to the single dot (C<.>) operator.
This applies to operations as diverse as method calls, hash lookups, and
list index values (see
L<http://www.template-toolkit.org/docs/default/Manual/Variables.html>
for details and examples).  In addition to the usual C<Template> module
Pod documentation, you can access the TT manual at
L<http://www.template-toolkit.org/docs/default/>.

B<NOTE>: The C<TTSite> helper creates several TT files using an
extension of C<.tt2>. Most other Catalyst and TT examples use an
extension of C<.tt>.  You can use either extension (or no extension at
all) with TTSite and TT, just be sure to use the appropriate extension
for both the file itself I<and> the C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template} =
...> line in your controller.  This document will use C<.tt2> for
consistency with the files already created by the C<TTSite> helper.


=head1 CREATE A SQLITE DATABASE

In this step, we make a text file with the required SQL commands to
create a database table and load some sample data.  Open C<myapp01.sql>
in your editor and enter:

    --
    -- Create a very simple database to hold book and author information
    --
    CREATE TABLE books (
            id          INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
            title       TEXT ,
            rating      INTEGER
    );
    -- 'book_authors' is a many-to-many join table between books & authors
    CREATE TABLE book_authors (
            book_id     INTEGER,
            author_id   INTEGER,
            PRIMARY KEY (book_id, author_id)
    );
    CREATE TABLE authors (
            id          INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
            first_name  TEXT,
            last_name   TEXT
    );
    ---
    --- Load some sample data
    ---
    INSERT INTO books VALUES (1, 'CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide', 5);
    INSERT INTO books VALUES (2, 'TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1', 5);
    INSERT INTO books VALUES (3, 'Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1', 4);
    INSERT INTO books VALUES (4, 'Perl Cookbook', 5);
    INSERT INTO books VALUES (5, 'Designing with Web Standards', 5);
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (1, 'Greg', 'Bastien');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (2, 'Sara', 'Nasseh');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (3, 'Christian', 'Degu');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (4, 'Richard', 'Stevens');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (5, 'Douglas', 'Comer');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (6, 'Tom', 'Christiansen');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (7, 'Nathan', 'Torkington');
    INSERT INTO authors VALUES (8, 'Jeffrey', 'Zeldman');
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 1);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 2);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (1, 3);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (2, 4);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (3, 5);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (4, 6);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (4, 7);
    INSERT INTO book_authors VALUES (5, 8);

B<TIP>: See Appendix 1 for tips on removing the leading spaces when
cutting and pasting example code from POD-based documents.

Then use the following command to build a C<myapp.db> SQLite database:

    $ sqlite3 myapp.db < myapp01.sql

If you need to create the database more than once, you probably want to
issue the C<rm myapp.db> command to delete the database before you use
the C<sqlite3 myapp.db < myapp01.sql> command.

Once the C<myapp.db> database file has been created and initialized, you
can use the SQLite command line environment to do a quick dump of the
database contents:

    $ sqlite3 myapp.db
    SQLite version 3.4.2
    Enter ".help" for instructions
    sqlite> select * from books;
    1|CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide|5
    2|TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1|5
    3|Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1|4
    4|Perl Cookbook|5
    5|Designing with Web Standards|5
    sqlite> .q
    $

Or:

    $ sqlite3 myapp.db "select * from books"
    1|CCSP SNRS Exam Certification Guide|5
    2|TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1|5
    3|Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol.1|4
    4|Perl Cookbook|5
    5|Designing with Web Standards|5

As with most other SQL tools, if you are using the full "interactive"
environment you need to terminate your SQL commands with a ";" (it's not
required if you do a single SQL statement on the command line).  Use
".q" to exit from SQLite from the SQLite interactive mode and return to
your OS command prompt.


=head1 DATABASE ACCESS WITH C<DBIx::Class>

Catalyst can be used with virtually any form of persistent datastore
available via Perl.  For example, 
L<Catalyst::Model::DBI|Catalyst::Model::DBI> can be used to
easily access databases through the traditional Perl C<DBI> interface.
However, most Catalyst applications use some form of ORM technology to
automatically create and save model objects as they are used.  Although
Tony Bowden's L<Class::DBI|Class::DBI> has been a popular choice 
in the past, Matt Trout's L<DBIx::Class|DBIx::Class> (abbreviated 
as "DBIC") has rapidly emerged as the Perl-based ORM technology of choice.  
Most new Catalyst applications rely on DBIC, as will this tutorial.

=head2 Create a DBIC Model

Use the C<create=static> model helper option to build a model that 
dynamically reads your database structure every time the application
starts:

    $ script/myapp_create.pl model MyAppDB DBIC::Schema MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB create=static dbi:SQLite:myapp.db
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model"
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Schema"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB.pm"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model/MyAppDB.pm"
    created "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t/model_MyAppDB.t"


C<MyAppDB> is the name of the model class to be created by the helper in 
C<lib/MyApp/Model> (Catalyst has a separate directory under C<lib/MyApp> 
for each of the three parts of MVC: C<Model>, C<View>, and C<Controller> 
[although older Catalyst applications often use the directories C<M>, 
C<V>, and C<C>]).  C<DBIC::Schema> is the type of the model to create. 
C<MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB> is the name of the DBIC schema file written to 
C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB.pm>.  Because we specified C<create=dynamic> 
to the helper, it use L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> to dynamically load 
the schema information from the database every time the application 
starts.  And finally, C<dbi:SQLite:myapp.db> is the standard DBI connect 
string for use with SQLite.

=head1 RUN THE APPLICATION

First, let's enable an environment variable option that causes
DBIx::Class to dump the SQL statements it's using to access the database
(this option can provide extremely helpful troubleshooting information):

    $ export DBIC_TRACE=1

This assumes you are using BASH as your shell -- adjust accordingly if
you are using a different shell (for example, under tcsh, use
C<setenv DBIC_TRACE 1>).

B<NOTE>: You can also set this in your code using
C<$class-E<gt>storage-E<gt>debug(1);>.  See
L<DBIx::Class::Manual::Troubleshooting> for details (including options
to log to file instead of displaying to the Catalyst development server
log).

Then run the Catalyst "demo server" script:    

    $ script/myapp_server.pl

Your development server log output should display something like:

    $script/myapp_server.pl
    [debug] Debug messages enabled
    [debug] Loaded plugins:
    .----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
    | Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader  0.17                                       |
    | Catalyst::Plugin::StackTrace  0.06                                         |
    | Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple  0.20                                     |
    '----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
    
    [debug] Loaded dispatcher "Catalyst::Dispatcher"
    [debug] Loaded engine "Catalyst::Engine::HTTP"
    [debug] Found home "/home/me/MyApp"
    [debug] Loaded Config "/home/me/MyApp/myapp.yml"
    [debug] Loaded components:
    .-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------.
    | Class                                                           | Type     |
    +-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------+
    | MyApp::Controller::Books                                        | instance |
    | MyApp::Controller::Root                                         | instance |
    | MyApp::Model::MyAppDB                                           | instance |
    | MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::Authors                                  | class    |
    | MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::BookAuthors                              | class    |
    | MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::Books                                    | class    |
    | MyApp::View::TT                                                 | instance |
    '-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------'
    
    [debug] Loaded Private actions:
    .----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------.
    | Private              | Class                                | Method       |
    +----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+
    | /default             | MyApp::Controller::Root              | default      |
    | /end                 | MyApp::Controller::Root              | end          |
    | /books/index         | MyApp::Controller::Books             | index        |
    | /books/list          | MyApp::Controller::Books             | list         |
    '----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------'
    
    [debug] Loaded Path actions:
    .-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------.
    | Path                                | Private                              |
    +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
    | /books/list                         | /books/list                          |
    '-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------'
    
    [info] MyApp powered by Catalyst 5.7011
    You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000

B<NOTE>: Be sure you run the C<script/myapp_server.pl> command from 
the 'base' directory of your application, not inside the C<script> 
directory itself or it will not be able to locate the C<myapp.db> 
database file.  You can use a fully qualified or a relative path to 
locate the database file, but we did not specify that when we ran the 
model helper earlier.

Some things you should note in the output above:

=over 4

=item * 

Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema dynamically created three model classes, 
one to represent each of the three tables in our database 
(C<MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::Authors>, C<MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::BookAuthors>,
and C<MyApp::Model::MyAppDB::Books>).

=item * 

The "list" action in our Books controller showed up with a path of
C</books/list>.

=back

Point your browser to L<http://localhost:3000> and you should still get
the Catalyst welcome page.

Next, to view the book list, change the URL in your browser to
L<http://localhost:3000/books/list>. You should get a list of the five
books loaded by the C<myapp01.sql> script above, with TTSite providing
the formatting for the very simple output we generated in our template.
The rating for each book should appear on each row.

Also notice in the output of the C<script/myapp_server.pl> that DBIC
used the following SQL to retrieve the data:

    SELECT me.id, me.title, me.rating FROM books me

because we enabled DBIC_TRACE.

You now the beginnings of a simple but workable web application. 
Continue on to future sections and we will develop the application
more fully.


=head1 A STATIC DATABASE MODEL WITH C<DBIx::Class>

=head2 Create Static DBIC Schema Files

Unlike the previous section where we had DBIC automatically discover the 
structure of the database every time the application started, here we 
will use static schema files for more control.  This is typical of most 
"real world" applications.

One option would be to create a separate schema file for each table in
the database, however, lets use the same L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader>
used earlier with C<create=dynamic> to build the static files for us.
First, lets remove the schema file created in Part 2:

    $ rm lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB.pm 

Now regenerate the schema using the C<create=static> option:

    $ script/myapp_create.pl model MyAppDB DBIC::Schema MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB create=static dbi:SQLite:myapp.db
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model"
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../t"
    Dumping manual schema for MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB to directory /home/me/MyApp/script/../lib ...
    Schema dump completed.
     exists "/home/me/MyApp/script/../lib/MyApp/Model/MyAppDB.pm"

We could have also deleted C<lib/MyApp/Model/MyAppDB.pm>, but it would 
have regenerated the same file (note the C<exists> in the output above).
If you take a look at C<lib/MyApp/Model/MyAppDB.pm>, it simply contains
a reference to the actual schema file in C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB.pm>
along with the database connect string.

If you look in the C<lib/MyApp/Schema> directory, you will find that 
C<MyAppDB.pm> is no longer using L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> as its 
base class (L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> is only being used by the 
helper to load the schema once and then create the static files for us) 
and that it only contains a call to the C<load_classes> method.  You 
will also find that C<lib/MyApp/Schema> contains a C<MyAppDB> 
subdirectory, with one file inside this directory for each of the tables 
in our simple database (C<Authors.pm>, C<BookAuthors.pm>, and 
C<Books.pm>).  These three files were created based on the information
found by L<DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader> as the helper ran.

The idea with all of the files created under C<lib/MyApp/Schema> by the 
C<create=static> option is to only edit the files below the C<# DO NOT 
MODIFY THIS OR ANYTHING ABOVE!> warning.  If you place all of your 
changes below that point in the file, you can regenerate the 
auto-generated information at the top of each file should your database 
structure get updated.

Also note the "flow" of the model information across the various files 
and directories.  Catalyst will initially load the model from 
C<lib/MyApp/Model/MyAppDB.pm>.  This file contains a reference to
C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB.pm>, so that file is loaded next.  Finally,
the call to C<load_classes> in that file will load each of the 
table-specific "results source" files from the C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB>
subdirectory.  These three table-specific DBIC schema files will then be 
used to create three table-specific Catalyst models every time the 
application starts (you can see these three model files listed in
the debug output generated when you launch the application).


=head2 Updating the Generated DBIC Schema Files


Let's manually add some relationship information to the auto-generated
schema files.  First edit C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB/Books.pm> and
add the following text below the C<# You can replace this text...> 
comment:

    #
    # Set relationships:
    #   
    
    # has_many():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
    #     3) Column name in *foreign* table
    __PACKAGE__->has_many(book_authors => 'MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB::BookAuthors', 'book_id');
    
    # many_to_many():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of has_many() relationship this many_to_many() is shortcut for 
    #     3) Name of belongs_to() relationship in model class of has_many() above 
    #   You must already have the has_many() defined to use a many_to_many().
    __PACKAGE__->many_to_many(authors => 'book_authors', 'author');


B<Note:> Be careful to put this code I<above> the C<1;> at the end of the
file.  As with any Perl package, we need to end the last line with
a statement that evaluates to C<true>.  This is customarily done with
C<1;> on a line by itself.

This code defines both a C<has_many> and a C<many_to_many> relationship. 
The C<many_to_many> relationship is optional, but it makes it easier to 
map a book to its collection of authors.  Without it, we would have to 
"walk" though the C<book_authors> table as in C<$book-E<gt>book_authors-
E<gt>first-E<gt>author-E<gt>last_name> (we will see examples on how to 
use DBIC objects in your code soon, but note that because C<$book-
E<gt>book_authors> can return multiple authors, we have to use C<first> 
to display a single author). C<many_to_many> allows us to use the 
shorter C<$book-E<gt>authors-E<gt>first-E<gt>last_name>. Note that you 
cannot define a C<many_to_many> relationship without also having the 
C<has_many> relationship in place.

Then edit C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB/Authors.pm> and add relationship
information as follows (again, be careful to put in above the C<1;> but
below the C<# DO NOT MODIFY THIS OR ANYTHING ABOVE!> comment):

    #
    # Set relationships:
    #
    
    # has_many():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
    #     3) Column name in *foreign* table
    __PACKAGE__->has_many(book_author => 'MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB::BookAuthors', 'author_id');
    
    # many_to_many():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of has_many() relationship this many_to_many() is shortcut for
    #     3) Name of belongs_to() relationship in model class of has_many() above 
    #   You must already have the has_many() defined to use a many_to_many().
    __PACKAGE__->many_to_many(books => 'book_author', 'book');

Finally, do the same for the "join table," 
C<lib/MyApp/Schema/MyAppDB/BookAuthors.pm>:

    #
    # Set relationships:
    #
    
    # belongs_to():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
    #     3) Column name in *this* table
    __PACKAGE__->belongs_to(book => 'MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB::Books', 'book_id');
    
    # belongs_to():
    #   args:
    #     1) Name of relationship, DBIC will create accessor with this name
    #     2) Name of the model class referenced by this relationship
    #     3) Column name in *this* table
    __PACKAGE__->belongs_to(author => 'MyApp::Schema::MyAppDB::Authors', 'author_id');


=head1 RUN THE APPLICATION

Run the Catalyst "demo server" script with the C<DBIC_TRACE> option
(it might still be enabled from earlier in the tutorial, but here
is an alternate way to specify the option just in case):

    $ DBIC_TRACE=1 script/myapp_server.pl

Make sure that the application loads correctly and that you see the 
three dynamically created model class (one for each of the 
table-specific schema classes we created).

Then hit the URL L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> and be sure that
the book list is displayed.


=head1 RUNNING THE APPLICATION FROM THE COMMAND LINE

In some situations, it can be useful to run your application and 
display a page without using a browser.  Catalyst lets you do this 
using the C<scripts/myapp_test.pl> script.  Just supply the URL you 
wish to display and it will run that request through the normal 
controller dispatch logic and use the appropriate view to render the 
output (obviously, complex pages may dump a lot of text to your 
terminal window).  For example, if you type:

    $ script/myapp_test.pl "/books/list"

You should get the same text as if you visited 
L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> with the normal development server 
and asked your browser to view the page source.


=head1 UPDATING THE VIEW

Let's add a new column to our book list page that takes advantage of
the relationship information we manually added to our schema files
in the previous section.  Edit C<root/src/books/list.tt2> add add the
following code below the existing table cell that contains
C<book.rating> (IOW, add a new table cell below the existing two 
C<td> cells):

    <td>
      [% # First initialize a TT variable to hold a list.  Then use a TT FOREACH -%]
      [% # loop in 'side effect notation' to load just the last names of the     -%]
      [% # authors into the list.  Note that the 'push' TT vmethod does not      -%]
      [% # a value, so nothing will be printed here.  But, if you have something -%]
      [% # in TT that does return a method and you don't want it printed, you    -%]
      [% # can: 1) assign it to a bogus value, or 2) use the CALL keyword to     -%]
      [% # call it and discard the return value.                                 -%]
      [% tt_authors = [ ];
         tt_authors.push(author.last_name) FOREACH author = book.authors %]
      [% # Now use a TT 'virtual method' to display the author count in parens   -%]
      [% # Note the use of the TT filter "| html" to escape dangerous characters -%]
      ([% tt_authors.size | html %])
      [% # Use another TT vmethod to join & print the names & comma separators   -%]
      [% tt_authors.join(', ') | html %]
    </td>

Then hit C<Ctrl+R> in your browser (not that you don't need to reload 
the development server or use the C<-r> option when updating TT 
templates) and you should now the the number of authors each book and 
a comma-separated list of the author's last names.  

If you are still running the development server with C<DBIC_TRACE> 
enabled, you should also now see five more C<SELECT> statements in the 
debug output (one for each book as the authors are being retrieved by 
DBIC).

Also note that we are using "| html", a type of TT filter, to escape 
characters such as E<lt> and E<gt> to &lt; and &gt; and avoid various
types of dangerous hacks against your application.  In a real 
application, you would probably want to put "| html" at the end of 
every field where a user has control over the information that can 
appear in that field (and can therefore inject markup or code if you
don't "neutralize" those fields).  In addition to "| html", Template
Toolkit has a variety of other useful filters that can found in the
documentation for L<Template::Filters|Template::Filters>.


=head2 Using C<RenderView> for the Default View

B<NOTE: The rest of this part of the tutorial is optional.  You can 
skip to Part 4, L<Basic CRUD|Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::BasicCRUD>, 
if you wish.>

Once your controller logic has processed the request from a user, it 
forwards processing to your view in order to generate the appropriate 
response output.  Catalyst uses
L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> by 
default to automatically performs this operation.  If you look in 
C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Root.pm>, you should see the empty 
definition for the C<sub end> method:

    sub end : ActionClass('RenderView') {}

The following bullet points provide a quick overview of the 
C<RenderView> process:

=over 4

=item *

C<Root.pm> is designed to hold application-wide logic.

=item *

At the end of a given user request, Catalyst will call the most specific 
C<end> method that's appropriate.  For example, if the controller for a 
request has an C<end> method defined, it will be called.  However, if 
the controller does not define a controller-specific C<end> method, the 
"global" C<end> method in C<Root.pm> will be called.

=item *

Because the definition includes an C<ActionClass> attribute, the
L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> logic
will be executed B<after> any code inside the definition of C<sub end>
is run.  See L<Catalyst::Manual::Actions|Catalyst::Manual::Actions>
for more information on C<ActionClass>.

=item *

Because C<sub end> is empty, this effectively just runs the default 
logic in C<RenderView>.  However, you can easily extend the 
C<RenderView> logic by adding your own code inside the empty method body 
(C<{}>) created by the Catalyst Helpers when we first ran the 
C<catalyst.pl> to initialize our application.  See 
L<Catalyst::Action::RenderView|Catalyst::Action::RenderView> for more 
detailed information on how to extended C<RenderView> in C<sub end>.

=back


=head2 Using The Default Template Name

By default, C<Catalyst::View::TT> will look for a template that uses the 
same name as your controller action, allowing you to save the step of 
manually specifying the template name in each action.  For example, this 
would allow us to remove the 
C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template} = 'books/list.tt2';> line of our 
C<list> action in the Books controller.  Open 
C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm> in your editor and comment out this line
to match the following (only the C<$c-E<gt>stash-E<gt>{template}> line
has changed):

    =head2 list
    
    Fetch all book objects and pass to books/list.tt2 in stash to be displayed
    
    =cut
    
    sub list : Local {
        # Retrieve the usual Perl OO '$self' for this object. $c is the Catalyst
        # 'Context' that's used to 'glue together' the various components
        # that make up the application
        my ($self, $c) = @_;
    
        # Retrieve all of the book records as book model objects and store in the
        # stash where they can be accessed by the TT template
        $c->stash->{books} = [$c->model('MyAppDB::Books')->all];
    
        # Set the TT template to use.  You will almost always want to do this
        # in your action methods (actions methods respond to user input in
        # your controllers).
        #$c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';
    }

C<Catalyst::View::TT> defaults to looking for a template with no 
extension.  In our case, we need to override this to look for an 
extension of C<.tt2>.  Open C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm> and add the 
C<TEMPLATE_EXTENSION> definition as follows:

    __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,
        TEMPLATE_EXTENSION => '.tt2',
    });

You should now be able to restart the development server as per the 
previous section and access the L<http://localhost:3000/books/list>
as before.

B<NOTE:> Please note that if you use the default template technique,
you will B<not> be able to use either the C<$c-E<gt>forward> or
the C<$c-E<gt>detach> mechanisms (these are discussed in Part 2 and 
Part 9 of the Tutorial).


=head2 Return To A Manually-Specified Template

In order to be able to use C<$c-E<gt>forward> and C<$c-E<gt>detach>
later in the tutorial, you should remove the comment from the
statement in C<sub list> in C<lib/MyApp/Controller/Books.pm>:

    $c->stash->{template} = 'books/list.tt2';

Then delete the C<TEMPLATE_EXTENSION> line in  
C<lib/MyApp/View/TT.pm>.

You should then be able to restart the development server and 
access L<http://localhost:3000/books/list> in the same manner as
with earlier sections.


=head1 AUTHOR

Kennedy Clark, C<hkclark@gmail.com>

Please report any errors, issues or suggestions to the author.  The
most recent version of the Catalyst Tutorial can be found at
L<http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/trunk/Catalyst-Manual/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial/>.

Copyright 2006, Kennedy Clark, under Creative Commons License
(L<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/>).