In an MVC framework i have often heard that use business logic in a model. But i think using the business logic in controller would run faster as view is directly connected to controller. I want to know what are the advantages of using a business logic in model?
MVC Frameworks – Advantages of Using Business Logic in Model
frameworksmodelmvc
Related Solutions
ElYusubov's answer mostly nails it, domain logic should go into the model and application logic into the controller.
Two clarifications:
- The term business logic is rather useless here, because it is ambiguous. Business logic is an umbrella term for all logic that business-people care about, separating it from mere technicalities like how to store stuff in a database or how to render it on a screen. Both domain logic ("a valid email address looks like...") and workflows/business processes ("when a user signs up, ask for his/her email address") are considered business logic, with the former clearly belonging in the model and the latter being application logic that goes in the controller.
- MVC is a pattern for putting stuff on a screen and allowing the user to interact with it, it does not specify storage at all. Most MVC-frameworks are full stack frameworks that go beyond mere MVC and do help you with storing your data, and because the data that should be stored are usually to be found in the model, these frameworks give you convenient ways of storing your model-data in a database, but that has nothing to do with MVC. Ideally, models should be persistence-agnostic and switching to a different type of storage should not affect model-code at all. Full fledged architectures have a persistence layer to handle this.
I don’t think either of them represent classical MVC.
Model
The model is the data and the business logic. A model contains the state of the running application. It should report data and state. It should validate input. It should update data and state based on input.
The model should be independent of use. In iOS, this generally means it should derive from core Objective-C classes and use only core Objective-C objects. A good test for this would be to see if the model would work for other compilers like GCC Objective-C, or if it will work in other environments like OS X.
The model should be externally controllable. The model should be able to be driven by unit-tests or driven by a completely separate set of controllers.
View
A view is anything that is displayed to a user. In iOS, this generally means anything derived from UIView (UILabel, UIButton, …) Views are dumb: meaning that they know nothing of the model, business logic, or context in which they are created.
Controller
The controller binds model data to views so it can be displayed to users, provides context to views so they are shown correctly (disabled, highlighted, …), and handles user input to update the model. In iOS, this generally means anything derived from UIViewController. A controller may need to process model data in some small way to get it into a view. A controller may need to process user input in some small way to make it suitable for the model.
Data Store
The data store is the permanent repository for model data. This can be a database or a web service. Usually, data stores stand outside of MVC or are attached to the model.
My Answer
Now that I got that out of the way, my answer to your question: the MVC described above is the approach I use. This has implications, some of which are difficult to deal with.
A view must know nothing of the model. If you have a property in your view named
priceortotal, then you’re doing it wrong.A controller must not contain business logic. If you have a controller calculate sales tax, then you’re doing it wrong.
Addressing concerns in the comments
Warning: I'm not an Android developer and have limited understanding of how Android works.
Services
Like data stores, long running async processing sits outside of MVC. If you need a service that updates the model, then think of it as method of the model. If you have a service that transforms data to show it to a user, then think of it as a method of a controller.
Novel Input
Like all input, broadcast receivers, orientation changes and task switching are tasks that should be handled by a controller. I think of iOS’s application delegate as a controller for the whole application: handling input which effects the whole application (like system notifications and application lifecycle changes).
Business Logic and Model Data
I see the Model composed of two parts, model data and business logic. I've learned it’s best to keep them separate. In practice, this means I wrap model data with business logic or add business logic on as a category of the model data.
Who I Am
To put it bluntly, it doesn’t matter who I am. I don’t think I’ve had a good original thought in my whole life. I’ve based my work on understanding patterns that other developers have created and applying them as best I can to the work I need to get done.
Since you asked, I’ve never worked in academia. I’ve been a software developer for the past 14 years. I’ve worked on code at all levels from drivers and debuggers to shiny custom views and silly apps. I’ve worked on iOS for the past 2½ years and have written many apps which have been released in the app store. I use my understanding of patterns to get my work done on time and on budget.
Update More questions in comments.
Models
I try to keep my data models as clean as possible. Usually they are mostly properties, sometimes conforming to NSCopying, NSCoding, and/or a JSON mapping. More and more, I include Key-Value Validation. This can be part of the data model or in a business logic category.
- (BOOL)validateValue:(inout MyValue **)value error:(out NSError **)error
{
if (![self complexTestWithValue:*value]) {
if (error != NULL) {
// Report error to caller.
*error = [self errorInValidation];
}
return NO;
}
return YES;
}
Business Logic
In the past, I've written lots of code which looks like
[dataSource fetchObjectsWithInput:input completion:^(NSArray *objects, NSError *error) {
// Model objects are in objects
}];
or
[dataSource fetchObjectsWithInput:input completion:^(MyClassResult *result, NSError *error) {
// Model objects are in result.objects
}];
Recently, I've gotten into promises (I'm using PromiseKit).
[dataSource fetchObjectsWithInput:input].then(^(MyClassResult *result) {
// Model objects are in result.objects
});
This has been a good general purpose factory pattern for Objective C.
I tend to write business logic computations in categories.
@interface MyClass (BusinessLogic)
- (NSString *)textForValue; // A string to be used as label text.
- (MyResult *)computeOperationWithInput:(MyInput *)input error:(out NSError **error);
- (MyOtherClass *)otherObjectByTransformingValues;
@end
Best Answer
The key is:
Separation of concerns
In an ideal world you want any given piece of code to do one thing and to do that well. So you want to try and avoid mixing up display logic and business logic and storage logic and everything else.
This separation provides a variety of benefits - testability (as suggested) is an important one (though to my mind it's almost a bonus), but also the fact that the code should be easier to understand at any given level and hence easier to maintain, that the business model/logic (in particular) is more portable (from web to native app) or that you can change the UX (say from MVC pages to a fully separated javascript app using a web API) - finally, if nothing else, the cummulative experience of a huge number of programmers tells us that it - separation of concerns - is a good thing.
On contemporary server hardware performance just shouldn't be an issue unless you're doing seriously funky stuff and then you don't want to have bound up in the user interface layers because you can't then attempt to deal with the performance issues in isolation.