Learn how to include external and third party libraries into your application in prodigyview

1. PHP Libraries

2. Overview
Objective
Learn the basics of adding external libraries in
ProdigyView.
Requirements
 Understanding of the DEFINES
Estimated Time
12 Minutes

3. Follow Along With Code
Example
1. Download a copy of the example code at
www.prodigyview.com/source.
2. Install the system in an environment you feel comfortable testing
in.
3. Proceed to examples/system/Libraries_PHP.php

4. The Purpose of Libraries
The purpose of libraries is to add third party extensions
into your application. Libraries differ from applications and
plugins in that they do not require a database.
In this tutorial, we are going to expand a functions
functionality by using libraries

5. Libraries Location
If you remember the tutorial on the defines, there was a a
definition called PV_LIBARIES. There is where you will
add your library. Following the examples, our library setup
should looking something like below.

6. Take Notice!
Take a second to notice how the files are named. This will
become important in a moment.
Notice two files end with .class.php
Only ends with .php

7. Disable Libraries
For our example, we are going to disable the libraries in
the bootstrap. This is done so we can go through the
process of learning about the libraries. Bootstrap will
normally handle loading the libraries for you.
1. Disable the calling of PVLibraries::init
2. Make sure no libraries are loaded

8. Flip Switch
Lets create our method called flipSwitch(). flipSwitch
calls certain methods if they exist.
Only
executes
if class is
included

9. Execute Flip Switch
For our first test, we are going to execute flipSwitch() to
see the results. According to our last slide, we should only
get results if the class was found.

10. Add A Library
As expected, no classes were found. Now we are going to add
the libraries. The code below looks for our folder
‘pv_switch’, which is located in the defined PV_LIBRARIES
folder. And we are only looking for files that end with .class.php
1. The name/folder of the library 2. The allowed extension(s) of the files
that will be loaded
3. Loads all the libraries that have been added

11. Test Number 2
With the libraries loaded, lets test flipSwitch() again. The
result should change.

12. Add All The libraries
We’ve made some progress but we are still missing a
class. What went wrong? In our last example we loaded all
classes that ended with .class.php. This time we are going
to load all the classes in the library.
1. Set the name/folder of the library to load
2. With no set extensions, all files
that end with .php will be included
3. Load only the library defined

13. Test 3 Results
Because no extension type was set, it will load the default
of all files that end with .php

14. The Code
If you are a little confused about what happened, look
through the source code of these files. You will see that
they contain the classes that were loaded.

15. Challenge!
This is an optional challenge designed to improve your
understanding of the libraries and ProdigyView.
1. Create a library that adds an Observer(see the
observer design pattern tutorial) to the protected
method PVLibraries::_loadLibrary().
2. Have the class/method added to the observer echo
out information about the library added.
3. Load only that library.
4. Load the library in this example ‘pv_switch’ and record
the results.

16. Review
1. Add a library with PVLibraries::addLibrary() method to
a queue of libraries to be loaded. The library name
should be the same name as a folder in PV_LIBRARIES
define.
2. Load all the libraries in the library queue using
PVLibraries::loadLibraries() method.
3. Load a single library with PVLibraries::loadLibrary()
method.

17. API Reference
For a better understanding of the libraries, visit the api by
clicking on the link below.
PVLibraries
More Tutorials
For more tutorials, please visit:
http://www.prodigyview.com/tutorials
www.prodigyview.com