Fallbacks for missing controller actions or way to disable this exception

[burzum]

There are cases like components that do some kind of CRUD and intercept controller actions. Right now there is no proper way to stop the controller from not throwing the MissingActionException.

Inside https://github.com/burzum/cakephp-user-tools/blob/develop/src/Controller/Component/UserToolComponent.php I'm calling this code:

    $this->Controller->response->send();
    exit;

The issue with that is any other dispatcher filters and probably components as well are not executed. After a good amount of time I figured out that this was the cause for debug kit not showing up on these "CRUD" pages. Removing the exit results in redering the content two times, so this isn't an option either.

I've already talked with Jose about this, he suggested to add something to allow the user of the framework to define fallback objects or callables instead of directly throwing the exception. An alternative I suggested would be a way to disable this exception, public property or a method, so that I can disable it from inside my component. Adding Controller::_stop() back and bypass the exception somehow through it might be another option?

As this works right now I don't think there is a way that would allow me to completely intercept a controller action from a component because of it.

The only way to deal with this is to override Controller::invoceAction() which is not really an option IMHO because it defeats the idea of the component. I think components should be able to do whatever they want with the controller.

[ADmad]

Instead of sending response from your component and exiting, just return the response object from startup() (eg. auth startup does that). The dispatch filter already checks whether the startup process has returned a Response instance and if so skips invoking the action. Thus no MissingActionException exception is thrown.

[burzum]

Thank you, this works! I didn't know that, is that already somewhere documented?

    public function startup(Event $Event) {
        if ($this->_config['actionMapping'] === true) {
            $result = $this->mapAction();
            if ($result instanceof Response) {
                $Event->stopPropagation();
                return $result;
            }
        }
    }

[ADmad]

Probably not documented, someone should :)

Any particular reason you are not using friendsofcake/crud which provides the same functionality you seem to be implementing?

[burzum]

I don't want to have any dependencies, just throw it in and get started. It's more like a prototyping feature. I don't expect people to really use the CRUD part of that plugin. Like with the CDC users plugin, we virtually never really used it as it is but always modified at least the login, registration and index and view.

Edit: Next time I run into such an issue I'm going to ticket it immediately before I waste a lot of time trying to find a solution that already exists... 😄

[ADmad]

Or ask on IRC first 😄

[markstory]

I think the dispatcher filter docs mention that returning a response will skip the remainder of the request, but I am not sure the same exists for component callbacks.

[burzum]

@ADmad I've asked there before. :)

[burzum]

There seems to be still an issue with that. When I do a flash inside my components CRUD action, for example the register() method and redirect to somewhere, for whatever reason the flash message is not shown. I've disabled CRUD in my component and set up a basic redirect + Flash->set() and redirected to another real action of the controller and it worked.

I think other components are not triggered correctly with the solution you've suggested @ADmad. If you want to reproduce it just add the plugin and use a controller like this and go to /users/register and register an user, by default login goes back to / when successful and shows a message.

class UsersController extends AppController {
    public $components = array(
        'UserTools.UserTool'
    );
}

[ADmad]

You are stopping event propagation when returning Response in your UserToolComponent::startup(), so startup() callbacks of any other components included after or with lower priority won't be triggered. You should ensure UserToolComponent::startup() runs last by attaching the component with lowest priority (high value for priority key).

That said, FlashComponent doesn't have a startup() method so not sure what's the problem there. One issue I see is you are doing Controller::render() in mapAction() for all actions. In case of redirect there's no need to render a view. Just return the Response instance returned by Controller::redirect().

[burzum]

No, none of both code pieces here work. I've already tried high and low values before. I've tried to return the result of the redirect() call as well, please see whole file here https://gist.github.com/burzum/92a1b0daeec082ddc75c. If I die(debug()) the session after the Flash->set() in handleFlashAndRedirect() I see it gets set but the session is empty after the redirect.

    public $components = array(
        'UserTools.UserTool' => [
            'priority' => 100
        ]
    );

    public function implementedEvents() {
        $events = parent::implementedEvents();
        return Hash::merge($events, [
            'Controller.initialize' => [
                'callable' => 'initialize',
                'priority' => 100
            ],
            'Controller.startup' => [
                'callable' => 'startup',
                'priority' => 100
            ]
        ]);
    }

[burzum]

Got it... going to push to my repo in ~10min. Thank you @ADmad !