[fw-general] Zend_FilterChain / Zend_Container

[Simon Mundy]

Hi there Ziffers Like many others, I have encountered many areas of overlap within the Zend Framework when I've been outlining the skeletons for components. The Zend_Acl component uses a form of 'container' or 'hash' that is almost functionally identical to that of Zend_Config, as does Zend_Environment. The proposed Zend_Form also needs a similar container, and Ralf and I were examining the Zend_FilterChain component as a means of providing filtering/validation. To that end, I wanted to see if we had reached some conclusion (or even progression!) regarding these two ZF 'primitives'. I know Zend_Hash was nominated as a name but wasn't terribly well received. I personally would be happier with Zend_Container - an abstract class that implements Countable, Iterable and provides overloading for public properties. It could possible define the stored data as a private property to ensure that all children of Zend_Container were well behaved and used the get() and set() methods to manipulate and iterate through this data rather than simply allowing access to the array. Thoughts? Other components that could possible use Zend_Container as a primitive are:- - Zend_Config - Zend_Db_Table_Rowset - Zend_Http_Request - Zend_Acl - ...anything else that requires a resultset... Is there a timeframe to get this rolling, as I'd like to refactor my components ASAP to avoid duplication and reduce the amount of unit testing needed or each separate component. Also the Zend_FilterChain has been referenced by a lot of discussions/proposals as well but no real steps forward to implementing it. Revisiting it today, I'm not sure if an abstract class would be necessary - it seems that it may be of more use to implement as an interface. The 'observed' component (be it a Zend_Acl_Aco or a Zend_Form_Field) will most likely extend a container so it will not always be practical to use a FilterChain as a standalone abstracted class. Any thoughts on this? I look forward to Christopher's comments, of course, being the driving force behind the FilterChain, as well as anyone else who has an immediate need for these two ZF components Cheerio -- Simon Mundy | Director | PEPTOLAB """ " "" """""" "" "" """"""" " "" """"" " """"" "  """""" "" " 202/258 Flinders Lane | Melbourne | Victoria | Australia | 3000 Voice +61 (0) 3 9654 4324 | Mobile 0438 046 061 | Fax +61 (0) 3 9654 4124 http://www.peptolab.com