PHP MVC Framework (Educational Project by Mouad Oumous)

A lightweight educational PHP MVC framework built from scratch while learning how Laravel and other modern frameworks work internally. It follows a clean and simple architecture to demonstrate Routing, Controllers, Models, Views, and Middlewares — the core concepts behind Laravel’s MVC pattern.

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🧠 Motivation

This project was created by Mouad Oumous during my journey to deeply understand how PHP frameworks like Laravel work under the hood. By building this from scratch, I explored:

• How routing and controllers interact
• How middleware and request/response cycles function
• How models handle database persistence
• How templates and layouts are rendered

The goal isn’t to compete with Laravel — but to learn its philosophy by recreating its minimal core step by step.

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✨ Features

• Custom Routing (GET & POST)
• Controllers and Action methods
• View rendering with layouts
• Simple Model & Active Record pattern
• Database migrations and persistence via PDO
• Form handling & Validation
• Session and Flash messages
• Middleware support (for auth, CSRF, etc.)
• Event hooks and lifecycle control
• Fully PSR-4 autoloaded via Composer

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📘 Use Cases

• Learn the internals of Laravel and MVC in PHP
• Use as a teaching or demo project
• Extend into a micro-framework
• Build small personal projects or tools

⚠️ Note: This framework is not intended for production use. It’s an educational tool meant for learning, experimentation, and exploration.

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🧩 Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or newer
• PDO extension enabled (e.g. pdo_mysql or pdo_sqlite)
• Composer (for autoloading)
• Apache/Nginx or PHP built-in server

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⚙️ Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/mouadoumous/php-mvc-framework.git
   cd php-mvc-framework

2. Install dependencies and generate autoloader:

   composer install

3. Configure your environment:

   • Update database settings in config/ or .env
   • Point your webserver to the public/ directory

4. Run the local development server:

   php -S localhost:8000 -t public

5. Visit in your browser:

   http://localhost:8000
   

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📁 Directory Structure

/app
  /controllers
  /models
  /views
/config
/core
  Application.php
  Controller.php
  Router.php
  Request.php
  Response.php
  Model.php
  View.php
/migrations
/public
  index.php
/vendor
composer.json
.env
README.md

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🚦 Routing & Controllers

Example:

$app->router->get('/users/{id}', [UserController::class, 'profile']);

Controllers extend a base Controller class and use dependency-injected Request and Response objects.

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🧱 Models & Database Layer

• Each model extends a DbModel base class
• Basic Active Record–like operations: save(), findOne(), etc.
• PDO prepared statements for database safety

Example:

$user = new User();
$user->name = "John";
$user->email = "john@example.com";
$user->save();

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🧩 Views & Layouts

• Views are simple PHP templates
• Each page extends a global layout
• Data passed from controllers is available in the view

Example:

return $this->render('home', ['name' => 'Mouad']);

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🔐 Middleware & Sessions

You can protect routes with middleware such as authentication checks:

$this->registerMiddleware(new AuthMiddleware(['profile']));

Sessions and flash messages make handling user state easy:

Application::$app->session->setFlash('success', 'Welcome back!');

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🧪 Validation

The framework includes a basic validation system for form inputs:

$this->addRule('email', [self::RULE_REQUIRED, self::RULE_EMAIL]);

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⚠️ Limitations

• Minimal ORM (no query builder or relationships)
• No built-in CSRF or XSS protection
• Basic routing (no regex parameters)
• Not meant for large production applications
• Learning-focused; extend at your own pace

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🧑‍💻 Contributing

If you find this project interesting or educational:

• Fork it and experiment
• Add your own features (query builder, CSRF protection, etc.)
• Improve documentation
• Share feedback or open pull requests

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📜 License

MIT License Copyright (c) 2025 Mouad Oumous

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❤️ Credits

Inspired by laravel — I used it as a foundation to understand and rebuild core Laravel concepts in a simplified PHP environment.

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“The best way to learn a framework is to build one.” — Mouad Oumous