I wrote a quick review for the book Zend Framework 1.8 Web Application Development on Nettuts+, please go check it out if you’re looking into developing with Zend Framework. :)
Even though the method outlined in my previous post would still work, I thought I’d post a cleaner one to handle the auto-load of Zend Framework classes in Kohana.
The code works with Zend Framework 1.8+, where a new Autoloader class has been introduced.
You can put the code in an appropriate place in your application, it could be in the base controller, or if you’re using Kohana 3.0, in the bootstrap file.
You now no longer need to manually ‘include/require’ Zend Framework files. :)
if ($path = Kohana::find_file('vendors', 'Zend/Loader'))
{
ini_set('include_path',
ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.dirname(dirname($path)));
require_once 'Zend/Loader/Autoloader.php';
Zend_Loader_Autoloader::getInstance();
}
It was over a year ago that I wrote the article that compares CodeIgniter and Kohana. Since then both CodeIgniter and Kohana have seen major progress with the release of CodeIgniter 1.7.0 and Kohana 2.3.
In December 2008, a new PHP framework called Yii has been released to the public with a stable 1.0. There were a lot of new PHP framework released in 2008, but Yii was one of the more recognised ones because:
Before I start this round of comparison, let me briefly list my experience with these frameworks, so you may interpret this article with your own judgement.
CodeIgniter: I started using CodeIgniter since its version 1.2.x from a few years ago. During the past few years I have worked on projects mainly using version 1.5.x and 1.6.x. I have now stopped using CodeIgniter in favour of using other PHP 5 only frameworks.
Kohana: I first started using Kohana when it was called BlueFlame back when it was first forked out of CodeIgniter. Since then I have lurked and participated in the Kohana community. All of my recent projects are done in Kohana.
Yii: The 1.0 release of Yii had my attention, but I didn’t really dive into it until about now. However, most of my impressions on Yii are based on its documentation and this article by Daniel.
Let’s see how they compare with each other.
Same notes as before: Grading scale: Limited < Fair < Good < Excellent. If a feature is not available in the distributed package, but is available via 3rd party libraries, I will state that in the comparison. If a feature is available both in the distributed package and via 3rd party libraries, only the official one will get assessed.
Since my previous post on this topic, Kohana has evolved and changed quite a bit, to the point that the instructions provided are no longer applicable.
So here are the updated instructions for those who would like to integrate Zend Framework into Kohana.
1) Put the ‘Zend’ folder in your application’s ‘vendors’ directory.
2) Put the following code into an appropriate place in your application, it could be in the base controller.
if ($path = Kohana::find_file('vendors', 'Zend/Exception'))
{
ini_set('include_path',
ini_get('include_path').PATH_SEPARATOR.dirname(dirname($path)));
}
3) Instanciate the Zend library with the following code:
require_once 'Zend/Mail.php'; $mail = new Zend_Mail;
That’s it! How simple is that? :)
First of all, not all parts of the Zend Framework enforce the class naming convention, at least not upon calling ‘em. For example, view helpers are called directly by the ‘chopped’ class name:
// actual class name:
class Path_To_The_CustomViewHelper {}
// calling it in the view:
$this->CustomViewhelper();
Also, models are both named, and called by their class names without any paths (but yes we have to include them in the include paths).
You would think that in most cases calling the classes by their full names (with paths) should work, right?
Wrong.
Two weeks ago I started working with Zend Framework at work. I chose to use Zend Framework for one primary reason: Zend. Even though I have plenty of experience with CodeIgniter and Kohana, I simply could not take any risks using them for a rather large project at a company I had just joined.
My experience so far is mixed. Probably because I am so used to the way CodeIgniter and Kohana do things, Zend Framework just appears utterly complicated and difficult to work with (at the beginning).
