Folder Refactor

Alright, so before we move on to create data and get into authentication, etc, I want to improve the infrastructure of the project a bit. We will be doing a couple big refactors throughout the project. Here, we will move some things around and then we're also going to be using something called namespaces in a little bit.

Framework Folder

Right now, we have our classes like Database and Router right in the root directory. You can do that, but I prefer not to. Classes like this are part of our "framework". This may sound a little confusing because when you hear "framework" you think of something like Laravel or Symfony. But really, a framework is just a collection of code that you can use to build an application. So we are essentially building our own framework. It's just not for anyone else to use, it is for our own project.

What I want to do is have classes like this that you could basically re-use in any project into a folder called Framework. Now you could call this anything such as "Core" or "Lib" or whatever you want. I like Framework because that is really what it is. if you look at our project like a house, this is the framework and foundation of it.

Move your Database.php and Router.php files into a folder called Framework. Now we need to update the require statements in index.php to reflect the new location. Change them to look like this:

require basePath('Framework/Database.php');
require basePath('Framework/Router.php');

We could technically move the helpers.php file into the Framework folder as well, but I like to keep it in the root directory. It also is not a class. The Framework folder is for classes. routes will also be kept in the root directory. You could put it in a folder like config if you want, but I like to keep it in the root.

App Folder

So the Framework folder is for non-specific classes that you could use in any project. The App folder will be for our specific controllers, views, etc. This is the actual application.

Let's move controllers and views into a folder called App.

Once again, the site will break. We need to update a couple things.

First, in the Framework/Router.php, we need to update the require statement in the route method.

Change this line:

require basePath($route['controller']);

To this:

require basePath('App/' . $route['controller']);

Now in your helpers.php file, update the loadView and loadPartial functions to look in the App folder:

// In the loadView function
$viewPath = basePath("App/views/{$name}.view.php");

// In the loadPartial function
$partialPath = basePath("App/views/partials/{$name}.php");

Now your application should be working again.

To me, this looks a lot cleaner. We have our framework and our application. The framework is the foundation and the application is the actual house.

In the next lesson, we will be using namespaces to make this even better.