noginn

In a recent project I wanted to use the sub-domain as the account key of a web application (i.e. noginn.myapp.com, where “noginn” is the account key). In Ruby on Rails this is achieved using the Account Location plugin, and I wanted to do something similar using the Zend Framework.

I have three modules in my application:

• Default - The marketing website, accessible from www.myapp.com or myapp.com
• Admin - The overall administration of the application, accessible from admin.myapp.com
• Account - The user account, accessible from all other sub-domains

Initially I wrote a custom router, however, as of Zend Framework 1.6.0 this functionality is available out of the box with Zend_Controller_Router_Route_Hostname.

It took me a little while to get to grips with the hostname router as the manual is not currently up to date, although the unit tests were useful in giving examples of it’s usage.

Setting up the routers

The routing is achieved by chaining a standard Zend_Controller_Router_Route with the path :controller/:action/* to each of the hostname routes. Note that the order of the routes is important so the account route regex does not match www. and admin. as well.

Here is my code:

$router = $controller->getRouter();
$router->removeDefaultRoutes();

$pathRoute = new Zend_Controller_Router_Route(
    ':controller/:action/*',
    array(
        'controller' => 'index',
        'action' => 'index'
    )
);

$accountRoute = new Zend_Controller_Router_Route_Hostname(
    ':account.myapp.com',
    array(
        'module' => 'account',
    ),
    array(
        'account' => '([a-z0-9]+)',
    )
);
$router->addRoute('account', $accountRoute->chain($pathRoute));

$adminRoute = new Zend_Controller_Router_Route_Hostname(
    'admin.myapp.com',
    array(
        'module' => 'admin',
    )
);
$router->addRoute('admin', $adminRoute->chain($pathRoute));

$defaultRoute = new Zend_Controller_Router_Route_Hostname(
    'www.myapp.com',
    array(
        'module' => 'default',
    )
);
$router->addRoute('default', $defaultRoute->chain($pathRoute));

Front controller plugin

To automatically retrieve the Account object I wrote a very simple preDispatch() plugin:

class Noginn_Controller_Plugin_AccountKey extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
    public function preDispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
    {
        $module = $request->getModuleName();

        // Only retrieve account if it's the account module
        if ($module == 'account') {
            $accounts = new Accounts();
            $account = $accounts->findBySubdomain($request->getParam('account'));

            if (!$account) {
                $request->setControllerName('error');
                $request->setActionName('error');
                return;
            }

            Zend_Registry::set('account', $account);
        }
    }
}

This uses the account parameter that is the sub-domain in the account module.

Usage

Linking or redirecting to accounts/modules in the controllers is just as simple.

To link to “http://noginn.myapp.com/profile/edit” in the view:

$this->url(array('controller' => 'profile', 'action' => 'edit', 'account' => 'noginn'), 'account);

To redirect to “http://admin.myapp.com/auth/login” in the controller:

$this->_helper->redirector->gotoRoute(array('controller' => 'auth', 'action' => 'login'), 'admin');

Within my controller I retrieve the registered Account to be used with Zend_Registry::get('account').

In closing

The beauty of this method over my original custom router is that it can be easily extended for additional routes.

If you have any ideas of how this approach could be improved, or any other comments really then please get in touch.