[Catalyst] Refactoring Controllers

[Ian.Docherty at nomura.com]

Steve
I'm not sure I have enough information to answer this so my answer may be a bit wide of the mark.

Would it make more sense, rather than to have different controllers, to abstract the different types of invoice into model objects with common methods, but use inheritance, moose roles, etc. to ring the changes.

Then in your controllers, perhaps use a query parameter to indicate the type of invoice, create the correct type of object and put it on the stash, using chaining to sort out your other controllers.

e.g. /invoice creates an invoice object using query argument 'invoice_type' to determine the class to use
then chain to /invoice/initialize, or invoice/control, or invoice/generate etc.

Regards
Ian

(Sorry for top posting, this email client is rubbish!)

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve [mailto:steve at matsch.com] 
Sent: 27 July 2011 14:30
To: catalyst at lists.scsys.co.uk
Subject: [Catalyst] Refactoring Controllers

Hi all,

I have a question regarding controller refactoring, and whether 
subclassing (or adding a Moose role) would be a good idea for a 
particular application.

The application creates 6 different types of invoices, each representing 
a particular type of service.  Currently, I have a controller for each 
that handles the various steps that must be taken to produce and 
ultimately send these invoices.  ALL OF THESE CONTROLLERS HAVE THE SAME 
ACTIONS, and most of the same logic, which to me says I should refactor 
these controllers...I just don't know how, and also whether the benefit 
is worth the work.  Almost certainly it would not be worth it in and of 
itself, however I might want to write another application someday where 
knowing this would certainly be useful :)

So IF this seems reasonable, and my controllers are 'FOOcontrol', 
'BARcontrol', 'BAZcontrol', and my actions are 'initialize', 
'upload_data', 'process', 'generate_invoices'...etc., what is a good way 
to stay DRY?  In particular I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind 
around how the URI's would be handled.

Thanks,
Steve



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