[Catalyst] Best practices: XML output from static XML

[Bill Moseley]

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 6:34 AM, J. Shirley <jshirley at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Just one last question. When you talk about using
> > 'lib/MyApp/View/MyView.pm', you mean that is also correct to create a
> simple
> > perl Module for your view. Then implement process method in the View.pm
> and
> > forward the context from the Controller ( $c->forward( $c->view('MyView=
')
> );
> > )?
> >
> >
> > David
> >
>
> Yup, that is exactly right.
>

Expanding this thread a bit...

I asked a related question in another thread.  What if you want a view that
needs separate code for each action?

For example, when no template is explicitly defined in the action,
C::View::TT will pass control to a template based on the action's name.
 Each action can have its own associated template.

Likewise, for a different type of output I might need code to run for each
action.

Say the controller action for the path /music/recent_uploads places a list
of objects in the stash.  Rendering with HTML sends it to TT (e.g
/templates/music/recent_uploads.tt).  But, what if the client wants, say an
RSS feed or JSON response for that same action?  Doesn't that seems like a
View's job to turn that into a feed or JSON?

But for both of those examples I need code to serialize those objects in the
stash (into a feed or JSON).  So, my question is 1) how to map the action
into a view method, and 2) where those view methods should live?

I don't think a separate view for every possible action is the correct
approach.  Seems better to have in an end() method simply:

$c->forward( $c->view( $view_type ) );


A simplistic or naive View approach might look like:

sub process {
    my ( $self, $c ) =3D @_;

    my $method =3D $c->action->reverse;

    $method =3D~ s{/}{_};

    $self->$method( $c ) if $self->can( $method );
}

But, that's flat and ugly.

I could keep the "view" code in with the controllers which in some way makes
maintenance easier (related code is together), but then the view is not
separate.

my $method =3D $c->action->name;
$method .=3D '_render_json';
$c->action->controller->$method( $c );


So, what's the recommended approach to per-action view code?



-- =

Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org
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