Component Development in Delphi for PHP
Guest blogger: This article was written by Jim Tierney, Principle Engineer working on the BDS
development team at CodeGear. I work closely with Jim on the ASP.NET designer.
I�ve been trying out Delphi for PHP. This article provides an overview Delphi for PHP and how
I�ve used it.
My Project
I�ve implemented a simple poll (or survey). The page to test my classes looks like this:
Vanilla PHP
I started my project by building PHP classes and a test page without any dependence on the VCL for
PHP framework. The key Delphi for PHP features that I used for this purpose were the debugger, code
editor (with syntax highlighting and code completion), and project manager.
The code for my test page looks like this:
1 <?php
2 require_once("..\..\pollClasses.php");
3 ?>
4 <html>
5 <head>
6 <title>Poll Test</title>
7 <link rel="stylesheet" href="pollStyles.css" type="text/css" />
8 </head>
9 <body>
10 <form method="post" action='<?php echo htmlentities($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])
?>'>
11 <?php
12 $pollController =
PollController::loadPoll(simplexml_load_file('pollDescription.xml'));
13 if (!empty($pollController))
14 {
15 $pollController->handleRequest();
16 if (!$pollController->isPollDone())
17 $pollController->pollView->show();
18 else
19 echo "Done";
20 }
21 else
22 echo "No poll";
23 ?>
24 </form>
25 </body>
26 </html>
VCL for PHP Wrapper
Once my test page was working, I was ready to wrap my poll classes in a VCL for PHP component.
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Class
The name of the component class is PollComponent.
1 <?php
2 require_once("vcl/vcl.inc.php");
3 use_unit("controls.inc.php");
4 use_unit("pollSample/poll/pollClasses.php");
5
6 class PollControl extends Control
7 {
8 ...
Properties
My poll classes load a poll description from a PHP simplexml object. To allow the XML to be
specified at design time, PollComponent declares two published properties. XMLFileName is for
specifying a filename. XMLLines is for typing in XML.
The properties are declared as follows:
18 // XMLLines property
19 function getXMLLines() { return $this->_xmlLines; }
20 function setXMLLines($value) { $this->_xmlLines = $value; }
21 function defaultXMLLines() { return array(); }
22
23 // XMLFileName property
24 function getXMLFileName() { return $this->_xmlFileName; }
25 function setXMLFileName($value) { $this->_xmlFileName = $value; }
26 function defaultXMLFileName() { return ""; }
Events
PollComponent declares a single published event. OnPollDone is an event that is fired when the user
has completed the poll.
13 // OnPollDone event
14 function getOnPollDone () { return $this->_onPollDone; }
15 function setOnPollDone ($value) { $this->_onPollDone = $value; }
16 function defaultOnPollDone () { return null; }
Property Editors
The XMLFileName property can be set using a file open dialog. The XMLLines property can be set
using a multiline edit. The following code registers property editors for XMLFileName and
XMLLines.
11
registerPropertyEditor("PollControl","XMLFileName","TFilenamePropertyEditor","nativ
e");
12
registerPropertyEditor("PollControl","XMLLines","TStringListPropertyEditor","native
");
Component registration
The following code registers PollComponent so that it will appear on the tool palette under the
�Poll� category:
9
registerComponents("Poll",array("PollControl"),"pollSample/poll/poll.inc.php");
Using the Component
The first step in using the component is to install the component package with the
Component/Packages... command.
As a result of installing the package, PollComponent is registered and appears on the tool palette:
A PollComponent can be drag dropped from the tool palette onto a form:
The PollComponent class is coded to display �(empty)� unless an XML description of the poll has
been provided. Here is the code to generate the component markup:
51 function dumpContents()
52 {
53 $this->checkPollController(); // load poll if necessary
54 echo "<div id=\"" . $this->Name . "_div\" style=\"width: " . $this->Width .
"px; height: " . $this->Height . "px\">";
55 if (!empty($this->pollController))
56 {
57 if (!$this->pollController->isPollDone())
58 $this->pollController->pollView->show();
59 }
60 else
61 echo "(empty)";
62 echo "</div>";
63 }
An XML description is provided by editing either the XMLLines or XMLFileName properties using
the object inspector.
The PollComponent looks better after adding a StyleSheet component..
Finally, an event handler for the OnPollDone event is created using the object inspector. I've added
code to redirect to another page.
10 class PollForm extends Page
11 {
12 public $PollControl1 = null;
13 function PollControl1PollDone($sender, $params)
14 {
15 redirect('completeForm.php');
16 }
18 }
Conclusion
For vanilla PHP development, Delphi for PHP provides a code editor, debugger, and project manager.
For visual development, Delphi for PHP provides a familiar combination of framework and tooling.
To integrate vanilla PHP with VCL, consider wrapping PHP classes in VCL components.
