Php – MVC View Question

There is no single proper approach to your problems even within MVC pattern so simple answer to your questions does not exist.

1 Error handling

If you are using the PDO you can change error handling by setting PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE so you don't have to use exceptions but regardless of the way errors are returned it is a programmers responsibility to handle them properly. If your method is returning false if the user doesn't exists then the controller should check what value was returned. There is no such thing as "controller assumes" it only means that the programmer assumed and didn't check returned value.

There are different errors which should be handled in different way some of them may require only showing error message some of them may be critical (like no db connection). You can use messages, views or additional controller to handle errors.

2 The proper way to show a view

Code from your example would be usually handled by the layout (header, footer, different element placement) and by the controller (using different views depending on the request). It is not good idea to use 'include' directly rather wrap it in the method. You can also create view class which would be responsible for handling views. view != .phtml

3 Managing user rights

In MVC pattern used for web applications there is usually additional "front controller" and permission checking will be handled there. You have to check for permission with each request and each request will require access to specific controller/method if you implement proper ACL it should resolve all your problems with user rights.

Your understanding is correct. Keep in mind that different frameworks use different approaches, so something which would for instance apply to Laravel won't necessarily apply to, say, Symfony.

This is especially true when it comes to deciding where the logic goes: some frameworks use models as basic objects containing data, but practically no logic by themselves. Other frameworks encourage you to move some logic from the controllers to the models.

A few comments:

• Why is your controller called index.php? Usually, the application has several controllers with the names which indicate their purpose. For instance, an e-commerce website can have a products.php file which contains the controller logic handling http://example.com/products/... requests, customers.php file for customer-related stuff, cart.php for you guess what, etc.

  Unless you have separate directories for each of them, such as /products/index.php, customers/index.php and cart/index.php, you are putting all the logic in the same file. As a consequence, even if the file is currently small, it will grow through time, and become very difficult to maintain.

• While doing input validation inside a controller is a perfectly valid approach, some frameworks move the validation logic from the controller to (1) the model and (2) the framework itself. I don't know PHP frameworks, so I'll give an example of ASP.NET MVC: usually, properties within the models have specific attributes which indicate how should they be validated. Then, basic validation logic is applied by the framework itself during the mapping.