Controller

Controllers are the entry point for each page request after routing. An action method is called on the matched controller, and its return value — a ViewModel or void — is passed to the view layer for rendering.

Controller Properties

Controllers extending AbstractController have access to the following properties, wired automatically from the application:

Basic Example

Here is the default IndexController that ships with the skeleton. It extends AbstractController and returns a ViewModel from its indexAction():

    

    declare(strict_types=1);

    namespace Application\Controller;

    use JiNexus\Mvc\Controller\AbstractController;
    use JiNexus\Mvc\Model\ViewModel;

    class IndexController extends AbstractController
    {
        public function indexAction(): ViewModel
        {
            return new ViewModel([
                'helloWorld' => 'Hello World!',
            ]);
        }
    }
    
                

Action Naming Convention

Action methods must be suffixed with Action. The MVC pipeline strips the suffix to determine the action name exposed to the view. For example:

• indexAction() → action name index
• viewAction() → action name view
• editAction() → action name edit

The matched action name is available on the application as $app->actionName (a read-only PHP 8.5 property hook).

Returning a ViewModel

An action returns a ViewModel to pass variables to the view template. The constructor accepts an associative array; each key becomes a variable in the rendered PHTML template:

    

    public function indexAction(): ViewModel
    {
        return new ViewModel([
            'pageTitle' => 'Welcome',
            'items'     => ['one', 'two', 'three'],
        ]);
    }
    
                

If an action returns void (no explicit return), the view is still rendered with whatever variables were set directly on $this->view.

Redirecting from a Controller

Use the $this->redirect helper to send a Location header to a named route. The request is terminated after the header is sent:

    

    public function dashboardAction(): void
    {
        // 302 redirect to the "home" route
        $this->redirect->toRoute('home');

        // 301 (permanent) redirect
        $this->redirect->toRoute('home', true);
    }