The Dispatcher

Overview

Dispatching is the process of taking the request object, Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract, extracting the module name, controller name, action name, and optional parameters contained in it, and then instantiating a controller and calling an action of that controller. If any of the module, controller, or action are not found, it will use default values for them. Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Standard specifies index for each of the controller and action defaults and default for the module default value, but allows the developer to change the default values for each using the setDefaultController(), setDefaultAction(), and setDefaultModule() methods, respectively.

Note: Default Module
When creating modular applications, you may find that you want your default module namespaced as well (the default configuration is that the default module is not namespaced). As of 1.5.0, you can now do so by specifying the prefixDefaultModule as TRUE in either the front controller or your dispatcher:

// In your front controller:

$front->setParam('prefixDefaultModule'// In your dispatcher:

$dispatcher->setParam('prefixDefaultModule'
This allows you to re-purpose an existing module to be the default module for an application.

Dispatching happens in a loop in the front controller. Before dispatching occurs, the front controller routes the request to find user specified values for the module, controller, action, and optional parameters. It then enters a dispatch loop, dispatching the request.

At the beginning of each iteration, it sets a flag in the request object indicating that the action has been dispatched. If an action or pre or postDispatch plugin resets that flag, the dispatch loop will continue and attempt to dispatch the new request. By changing the controller and/or action in the request and resetting the dispatched flag, the developer may define a chain of requests to perform.

The action controller method that controls such dispatching is _forward(); call this method from any of the preDispatch(), postDispatch() or action methods, providing an action, controller, module, and optionally any additional parameters you may wish to send to the new action:

span style="color: #808080; font-style: italic;">// forward to another action in the current controller and module:
'bar''baz' => 'bogus'// forward to an action in another controller:
    // FooController::bazAction(),
    // in the current module:
'baz', 'foo''baz' => 'bogus'// forward to an action in another controller in another module,
    // Foo_BarController::bazAction():
'baz', 'bar', 'foo''baz' => 'bogus'));
}

Subclassing the Dispatcher

Zend_Controller_Front will first call the router to determine the first action in the request. It then enters a dispatch loop, which calls on the dispatcher to dispatch the action.

The dispatcher needs a variety of data in order to do its work - it needs to know how to format controller and action names, where to look for controller class files, whether or not a provided module name is valid, and an API for determining if a given request is even dispatchable based on the other information available.

Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface defines the following methods as required for any dispatcher implementation:

span style="color: #808080; font-style: italic;">/**
     * Format a string into a controller class name.
     *
     * @param string $unformatted
     * @return string
     *//**
     * Format a string into an action method name.
     *
     * @param string $unformatted
     * @return string
     *//**
     * Determine if a request is dispatchable
     *
     * @param  Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request
     * @return boolean
     *//**
     * Set a user parameter (via front controller, or for local use)
     *
     * @param string $name
     * @param mixed $value
     * @return Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface
     *//**
     * Set an array of user parameters
     *
     * @param array $params
     * @return Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface
     *//**
     * Retrieve a single user parameter
     *
     * @param string $name
     * @return mixed
     *//**
     * Retrieve all user parameters
     *
     * @return array
     *//**
     * Clear the user parameter stack, or a single user parameter
     *
     * @param null|string|array single key or array of keys for
     *        params to clear
     * @return Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface
     *//**
     * Set the response object to use, if any
     *
     * @param Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract|null $response
     * @return void
     *//**
     * Retrieve the response object, if any
     *
     * @return Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract|null
     *//**
     * Add a controller directory to the controller directory stack
     *
     * @param string $path
     * @param string $args
     * @return Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface
     *//**
     * Set the directory (or directories) where controller files are
     * stored
     *
     * @param string|array $dir
     * @return Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface
     *//**
     * Return the currently set directory(ies) for controller file
     * lookup
     *
     * @return array
     *//**
     * Dispatch a request to a (module/)controller/action.
     *
     * @param  Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request
     * @param  Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract $response
     * @return Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract|boolean
     *//**
     * Whether or not a given module is valid
     *
     * @param string $module
     * @return boolean
     *//**
     * Retrieve the default module name
     *
     * @return string
     *//**
     * Retrieve the default controller name
     *
     * @return string
     *//**
     * Retrieve the default action
     *
     * @return string
     */

In most cases, however, you should simply extend the abstract class Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Abstract, in which each of these have already been defined, or Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Standard to modify functionality of the standard dispatcher.

Possible reasons to subclass the dispatcher include a desire to use a different class or method naming schema in your action controllers, or a desire to use a different dispatching paradigm such as dispatching to action files under controller directories (instead of dispatching to class methods).