Request

An abstraction over super-globals to make the interface clean.

The request class is provided as an abstraction over the usual Super Globals in PHP. To work with GET, POST we use the $_GET to get any query parameters and $_POST to get any data arriving using POST request. In the controllers, which handle the requests after the requests make it through the Router and MiddleWare if any is used, we can make use of the Request class's provided methods to get any data associated with the request.

For example: To get the value of an input field whose name attribute is username and is sent with a POST request, we can use the method $request->formData['username'] which works the same as $_POST['username'] but it also checks if the key username exists in the array, otherwise it returns NULL.

Request instance in Controller

Every controller method should have a parameter $request which contains the current request instance. Using this instance, we can interact with the request and read its data easily.

<?php
// request to path: /home/user?action=render

class homeController{
    public function index($request) {
        $url = $request->url();
        $context = ['url' => $url];
        VIEW::init('index.html', $context);    
        // init function extracts the $context array 
        // in the scope of index.html so that we can use these variables in the html file
    }
}
?>

Methods supported by Request class

The Request class interface provides all the necessary methods to work with the Super global arrays. The complete list is given below with examples -

Lets create an instance of the Request class

<?php   // index.php file
use sirJuni\Framework\Components\Request;

$request = new Request();

// below code goes here
?>

Methods List:

1. fullUrl()

This method is used to return the full path that is being requested along with the query string. If we are running web server on localhost and we request localhost/user/Admin?action=login then, this method would return /user/Admin?action=login.

echo($request->fullUrl());    // echos /user/Admin/?action=login

1. url()

This method is used to get just the requested path and not the query string. So, if we request the same path as above, we would get

echo($request->url());     // echos /user/Admin
// remember the trailing slash after Admin, is removed automatically

1. method()

It is used to get the method of the request like GET, POST.

echo($request->method());

1. queryKeys()

This methods returns an array contains all the keys of $_GET array.

For example: if we make a request to localhost/user/Admin/?name=shoaib&age=20 this method would return an array containing ['name', 'age'].

If no query string is in the path, it returns an empty array.

print_r($request->queryKeys());

1. queryData($key)

This method is used to grab the corresponding value from $_GET. Once we get the keys in the query string, we can iterate over them and grab the corresponding values for each key, in code it looks like:

foreach ($request->queryKeys() as $key) {
    echo($request->queryData($key));
}

1. formKeys()

This method returns an array containing all the keys of $_POST array, if its empty it returns an empty array [].

print_r($request->formKeys());

1. formData($key)

To get some value from the $_POST array, if we know the key, then we can use this method to get the value.

echo($request->formData('username'));

For the $_COOKIE array, we have cookieKeys() and cookieData($key) methods.

For $_SESSION array, we have sessionKeys() and sessionData($key) methods.

This is all about the Request class and its methods.