=head1 NAME Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::02_CatalystBasics - Catalyst Tutorial - Chapter 2: Catalyst Application Development Basics =head1 OVERVIEW This is B for the Catalyst tutorial. L =over 4 =item 1 L =item 2 B<02_Catalyst Basics> =item 3 L =item 4 L =item 5 L =item 6 L =item 7 L =item 8 L =item 9 L =item 10 L =back =head1 DESCRIPTION In this chapter of the tutorial, we will create a very basic Catalyst web application, demonstrating a number of powerful capabilities, such as: =over 4 =item * Helper Scripts Catalyst helper scripts that can be used to rapidly bootstrap the skeletal structure of an application. =item * MVC Model/View/Controller (MVC) provides an architecture that facilitates a clean "separation of control" between the different portions of your application. Given that many other documents cover this subject in detail, MVC will not be discussed in depth here (for an excellent introduction to MVC and general Catalyst concepts, please see L). In short: =over 4 =item * Model The model usually represents a data store. In most applications, the model equates to the objects that are created from and saved to your SQL database. =item * View The view takes model objects and renders them into something for the end user to look at. Normally this involves a template-generation tool that creates HTML for the user's web browser, but it could easily be code that generates other forms such as PDF documents, e-mails, spreadsheets, or even "behind the scenes" formats such as XML and JSON. =item * Controller As suggested by its name, the controller takes user requests and routes them to the necessary model and view. =back =item * ORM The use of Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) technology for database access. Specifically, ORM provides an automated and standardized means to persist and restore objects to/from a relational database and will automatically create our Catalyst model for use with a database. =back You can checkout the source code for this example from the catalyst subversion repository as per the instructions in L. =head1 CREATE A CATALYST PROJECT Catalyst provides a number of helper scripts that can be used to quickly flesh out the basic structure of your application. All Catalyst projects begin with the C helper (see L for more information on helpers). Also note that as of Catalyst 5.7000, you will not have the helper scripts unless you install both L and L. In this first chapter of the tutorial, use the Catalyst C script to initialize the framework for an application called C: $ catalyst.pl Hello created "Hello" created "Hello/script" created "Hello/lib" created "Hello/root" ... created "Hello/script/hello_create.pl" Change to application directory and Run "perl Makefile.PL" to make sure your install is complete $ cd Hello Note: If you are using Strawberry Perl on Win32, drop the ".pl" from the end of the "catalyst.pl" command and simply use "catalyst Hello". The C helper script will display the names of the directories and files it creates: Changes # Record of application changes lib # Lib directory for your app's Perl modules Hello # Application main code directory Controller # Directory for Controller modules Model # Directory for Models View # Directory for Views Hello.pm # Base application module Makefile.PL # Makefile to build application hello.conf # Application configuration file README # README file root # Equiv of htdocs, dir for templates, css, javascript favicon.ico static # Directory for static files images # Directory for image files used in welcome screen script # Directory for Perl scripts hello_cgi.pl # To run your app as a cgi (not recommended) hello_create.pl # To create models, views, controllers hello_fastcgi.pl # To run app as a fastcgi program hello_server.pl # The normal development server hello_test.pl # Test your app from the command line t # Directory for tests 01app.t # Test scaffold 02pod.t 03podcoverage.t Catalyst will "auto-discover" modules in the Controller, Model, and View directories. When you use the hello_create.pl script it will create Perl module scaffolds in those directories, plus test files in the "t" directory. The default location for templates is in the "root" directory. The scripts in the script directory will always start with the lowercased version of your application name. If your app is MaiTai, then the create script would be "maitai_create.pl". Though it's too early for any significant celebration, we already have a functioning application. We can use the Catalyst supplied script to start up a development server and view the default Catalyst page in your browser. All scripts in the script directory should be run from the base directory of your application, so change to the Hello directory. Run the following command to start up the built-in development web server (make sure you didn't forget the "C" from the previous step): $ script/hello_server.pl [debug] Debug messages enabled [debug] Statistics enabled [debug] Loaded plugins: .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Catalyst::Plugin::ConfigLoader 0.27 | | Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple 0.25 | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' [debug] Loaded dispatcher "Catalyst::Dispatcher" [debug] Loaded engine "Catalyst::Engine::HTTP" [debug] Found home "/home/me/Hello" [debug] Loaded Config "/home/me/Hello/hello.conf" [debug] Loaded components: .-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------. | Class | Type | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------+ | Hello::Controller::Root | instance | '-----------------------------------------------------------------+----------' [debug] Loaded Private actions: .----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------. | Private | Class | Method | +----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+ | /default | Hello::Controller::Root | default | | /end | Hello::Controller::Root | end | | /index | Hello::Controller::Root | index | '----------------------+--------------------------------------+--------------' [debug] Loaded Path actions: .-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------. | Path | Private | +-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | / | /default | | / | /index | '-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------' [info] Hello powered by Catalyst 5.80013 You can connect to your server at http://debian:3000 Point your web browser to L (substituting a different hostname or IP address as appropriate) and you should be greeted by the Catalyst welcome screen (if you get some other welcome screen or an "Index" screen, you probably forgot to specify port 3000 in your URL). Information similar to the following should be appended to the logging output of the development server: [info] *** Request 1 (0.005/s) [20712] [Sun Oct 11 11:58:51 2009] *** [debug] "GET" request for "/" from "172.0.0.1" [info] Request took 0.007342s (136.203/s) .----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------. | Action | Time | +----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+ | /index | 0.000491s | | /end | 0.000595s | '----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------' Press Ctrl-C to break out of the development server. =head1 HELLO WORLD =head2 The Simplest Way The Root.pm controller is a place to put global actions that usually execute on the root URL. Open the C file in your editor. You will see the "index" subroutine, which is responsible for displaying the welcome screen that you just saw in your browser. Later on you'll want to change that to something more reasonable, such as a "404" message or a redirect, but for now just leave it alone. sub index :Path :Args(0) { my ( $self, $c ) = @_; # Hello World $c->response->body( $c->welcome_message ); } The "C<$c>" here refers to the Catalyst context, which is used to access the Catalyst application. In addition to many other things, the Catalyst context provides access to "response" and "request" objects. (See L, L, and L) C<$c-Eresponse-Ebody> sets the HTTP response (see L), while C<$c-Ewelcome_message> is a special method that returns the welcome message that you saw in your browser. The ":Path :Args(0)" after the method name are attributes which determine which URLs will be dispatched to this method. (You might see ":Private" if you are using an older version of Catalyst, but using that with 'default' or 'index' is currently deprecated. If so, you should also probably upgrade before continuing the tutorial.) Some MVC frameworks handle dispatching in a central place. Catalyst, by policy, prefers to handle URL dispatching with attributes on controller methods. There is a lot of flexibility in specifying which URLs to match. This particular method will match all URLs, because it doesn't specify the path (nothing comes after "Path"), but will only accept a URL without any args because of the ":Args(0)". The default is to map URLs to controller names, and because of the way that Perl handles namespaces through package names, it is simple to create hierarchical structures in Catalyst. This means that you can create controllers with deeply nested actions in a clean and logical way. For example, the URL C maps to the package C, and the C method. Add the following subroutine to your C file: sub hello :Global { my ( $self, $c ) = @_; $c->response->body("Hello, World!"); } B: See Appendix 1 for tips on removing the leading spaces when cutting and pasting example code from POD-based documents. Here you're sending your own string to the webpage. Save the file, start the server (stop and restart it if it's still running), and go to L to see "Hello, World!" Also notice that a new action is listed under "Loaded Private actions" in the development server debug output. =head2 Hello, World! Using a View and a Template In the Catalyst world a "View" itself is not a page of XHTML or a template designed to present a page to a browser. Rather, it is the module that determines the I of view -- HTML, pdf, XML, etc. For the thing that generates the I of that view (such as the a Toolkit Template template file), the actual templates go under the "root" directory. To create a TT view, run: $ script/hello_create.pl view TT TT This creates the C module, which is a subclass of C. =over 4 =item * The "view" keyword tells the create script that you are creating a view. =item * The first "TT" tells the script to name the View module "TT.pm", which is a commonly used name for TT views. (You can name it anything you want, such as "HTML.pm".) =item * The final "TT" tells Catalyst the I of the view, with "TT" indicating that you want to a Template Toolkit view. =back If you look at C you will find that it only contains a config statement to set the TT extension to ".tt". Now that the TT.pm "View" exists, Catalyst will autodiscover it and be able to use it to display the view templates using the "process" method that it inherits from the C. Template Toolkit is a very full featured template facility, with excellent documentation at L, but since this is not a TT tutorial, we'll stick to only basic TT usage here (and explore some of the more common TT features in later chapters of the tutorial). Create a C template file (put it in the C under the C directory that is the base of your application). Here is a simple sample:

This is a TT view template, called '[% template.name %]'.

[% and %] are markers for the TT parts of the template. Inside you can access Perl variables and classes, and use TT directives. In this case, we're using a special TT variable that defines the name of the template file (C). The rest of the template is normal HTML. Change the hello method in C to the following: sub hello :Global { my ( $self, $c ) = @_; $c->stash->{template} = 'hello.tt'; } This time, instead of doing C<$c-Eresponse-Ebody()>, you are setting the value of the "template" hash key in the Catalyst "stash", an area for putting information to share with other parts of your application. The "template" key determines which template will be displayed at the end of the request cycle. Catalyst controllers have a default "end" action for all methods which causes the first (or default) view to be rendered (unless there's a C<$c-Eresponse- Ebody()> statement). So your template will be magically displayed at the end of your method. After saving the file, restart the development server, and look at L again. You should see the template that you just made. =head1 CREATE A SIMPLE CONTROLLER AND AN ACTION Create a controller named "Site" by executing the create script: $ script/hello_create.pl controller Site This will create a C file (and a test file). Bring Site.pm up in your editor, and you can see that there's not much there. In C, add the following method: sub test :Local { my ( $self, $c ) = @_; $c->stash->{username} = "John"; $c->stash->{template} = 'site/test.tt'; } Notice the "Local" attribute on the C method. This will cause the C action (now that we have assigned an "action type" to the method it appears as a "controller action" to Catalyst) to be executed on the "controller/method" URL, or, in this case, "site/test". We will see additional information on controller actions throughout the rest of the tutorial, but if you are curious take a look at L. It's not actually necessary to set the template value as we do here. By default TT will attempt to render a template that follows the naming pattern "controller/method.tt", and we're following that pattern here. However, in other situations you will need to specify the template (such as if you've "forwarded" to the method, or if it doesn't follow the default naming convention). We've also put the variable "username" into the stash, for use in the template. Make a subdirectory "site" in the "root" directory. Copy the hello.tt file into the directory as C, or create a new template file at that location. Include a line like:

Hello, [% username %]!

Bring up or restart the server. Notice in the server output that C is listed in the Loaded Path actions. Go to L in your browser. You should see your test.tt file displayed, including the name "John" that you set in the controller. =head1 AUTHORS Gerda Shank, C Kennedy Clark, C Please report any errors, issues or suggestions to the author. The most recent version of the Catalyst Tutorial can be found at L. Copyright 2006-2008, Kennedy Clark & Gerda Shank, under Creative Commons License (L).