Is this a good way for Controller to interact with Model ? (MVC)

Question

In my controller I had the idea to do something like the following:

// retrieve fields from form
$firstname = $form->getInput('firstname');
$lastname = $form->getInput('lastname');
[...]
// create Member object
$member = new Member($firstname, $lastname, [...]);
// save Member in DB
$this->_daoFactory->get('Member')->save($member);

In this example, the DAO factory would create an instance of the MemberDAO class, which (I guess) acts like a data mapper? And allows me to save the Member object in DB, to update a Member, get a Member from id, and other db requests probably.

What do you think about this code?

Thank you for your review!

Answer 1

A lot of MVC frameworks do the datamapping in the same class (usually with static methods). I would also avoid creating hard links between controllers and models (like having each model property as a parameter in the class constructor). Something like this is a little more elegant, IMO:

<?php
// Model
class Member
{
 public static function forge(array $data = array())
 {
 return new static($data);
 }
 public function __construct(array $data = array())
 {
 foreach ($data as $k => $v)
 {
 // consider checking here for expected properties,
 // sanitizing input, etc.
 $this->$k = $v;
 }
 }
 public function save()
 {
 // If primary key exists, run DB update query
 // Otherwise, run insert query
 // Return success/failure information (and/or throw exceptions)
 }
}
// Controller action
$member = Member::forge($form->get_sanitized_postdata());
$member->save();

• Matthew: Why didn't you instantiate with "new" operator instead? $member = new Member($form->get_sanitized_postdata())