[Catalyst] Accessing action URIs outside of Catalyst app

[Matt S Trout]

On 8 Jan 2007, at 16:59, Brian Kirkbride wrote:

> Matt S Trout wrote:
>> On 3 Jan 2007, at 20:21, Brian Kirkbride wrote:
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> Is there a best practice way to maintain a map of URLs used in a  
>>> Catalyst application.  To clarify, I need to map actions to URLs  
>>> outside of Catalyst (CRON jobs, Emailers, etc) and won't have  
>>> access to $c->uri_for or the $c->dispatcher.
>> If you need to do this, your design is broken.
>
> Perhaps, but I ascribe that to it being in transition :)
>
>> Step back. Explain what you're trying to achieve.
>
> Automated emails sent out to users need to provide them with a list  
> of different webapp URLs.  These actions are asynchronous from the  
> webapp itself.  I have a number of scripts (a few are legacy  
> dinosaurs) that need webapp URLs as well.
>
> If I choose to change /cancel to /account/cancel later on, I'd like  
> to do it in one place.  I realize that without parsing the  
> controllers' actions I can't expect the outside code to get those  
> URLs.  I would also rather not "use MyApp.pm" in simple scripts  
> that only need my model logic and a URL, and in some cases I can't.

Explain "can't" in a form that doesn't make me feel you've just  
completely missed the point of "achieve" and told me what you're  
trying (failing) to implement :)

>
> My hope was to configure the URL mapping in a config file, which  
> could be accessed by my webapp and outside scripts.  Something like  
> this:
>
> sub cancel : Args(1) : Path($urlmap->{account_cancel}) {
> 	# action
> }
>
> This, of course, does not work because attributes do not evaluate  
> their arguments.  Perhaps my solution is to subclass the Dispatcher  
> to allow for:
>
> sub cancel : Args(1) : FromURLMap('account_cancel') {
> 	# action
> }
>
> That wouldn't be too hard.  Thoughts?

Yeah, Catalyst already has an implementation for this -

package MyApp::Controller::Foo;

...

sub cancel :Action :Args(1) { ... }

then in myapp.conf

<Controller Foo>
   <Action cancel>
     Path /cancel
   </Action>
</Controller>

You can apply any attribute like that, although setting Args or  
similar from the config file might be considered unwise.

-- 
Matt S Trout, Technical Director, Shadowcat Systems Ltd.
Offering custom development, consultancy and support contracts for  
Catalyst,
DBIx::Class and BAST. Contact mst (at) shadowcatsystems.co.uk for  
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