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I've been searching and trying to learn for ages but it just doesn't stick. There seems to be only 1 tutorial on Zend 2, and it's not very smart. Here we have a sample structure (and the tutorial proceeds with this application) http://framework.zend.com/manual/2.0/en/user-guide/modules.html :

zf2-tutorial/
    /module
        /Album
            /config
            /src
                /Album
                    /Controller
                    /Form
                    /Model
            /view
                /album
                    /album

That's not cool - how do I know which album is which? In Zend 1 it made a lot of sense - you have modules, then you have controllers, and those controllers have actions.

Now I have a module called Album. is the src/Album/... a "single controller"? Would:

zend1application/modules/album/albumcontroller.php map to zend2application/modules/album/src/album/controller/albumcontroller.php? In that case, why are there 3 albums now? Like what happens if I change albumcontroller.php to indexcontroller.php? (I have been testing but there are so many changes it never sticks - I finally thought I should ask someone and if I know why I'll remember.

If I look at it a different way it seems the Album in module/Album and module/Album/src/Album should be the same - then why would we have it twice? Doesn't that just make room for error? Like why have a src/album folder? Why not put Controller, Form, and Model under module/Album?

Why is there a folder called Controller? There used to be a folder called controllers (plural, why singular now?) in a module before, that makes sense. But why is/are controller(s) inside a src/Album folder now?

Thank you for your time. I have tried to research but I think it's just too big absorb when (in my opinion) it seems so sparsely documented. Or, if someone could point me to a book like http://survivethedeepend.com/ but for ZF2, it'd be greatly apprecated.

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Zend Framework 2 follows PHPfigs PSR-0 Standards. This means that the directory structure directly relates to the classname. But before i come close to that, let me explain the basic architecture.

First you have the ModuleNAME. Since the Module name needs to be unique, it only makes sense to map the Modulename to the Namespace of your model.

Inside the modules folder you have three sub-folders. One folder for configuration items named config. One folder for source-code files named src and one additional folder for the view files view

This separation is simply for overview. You separate configuration, view and sourcecode from another. It makes no sense to bunch them together and i guess you'd agree. This pretty much has been the same for ZF1, too.

The interesting part is the source-folder src. Earlier i mentioned about the PSR-0 Standard. And this is the place where it comes into effect. By default the source-files for each module will be looked upon from the source-folder src. So whenever you have a class, it will be using PSR-0 Standards based off of the source-folder. Mewning: My\Funky\Class would be found within src\My\Funky\Class.php

And that's basically all there is to it. Controllers usually have a FQCN like Mymodule\Controller\SomeController so you will find this class inside src\Mymodule\Controller\SomeController.php

The main question arising could be: Why are the folders sometimes all lowercase and sometimes ucfirst. The answer, once again, is PSR-Standards. Classnames and/or Namespaces are supposed to begin with an upperchar character. And since path-names are case-sensitive, the folders need to match the classnames exactly!

EDIT Another nice read i've just stumbled upon is Rob Allens latest blogpost: Thoughts on module directory structure. He explains how you can change the default setup quite easily to your likings.

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6 Comments

That makes good sense. So the only immediate folder inside src should be the module name? And the fact Controller, Model, and Form is singular is just a quirk (quite annoying in fact)
Not really a quirk, when you consider your classnames. It'll be Modulename\Controller\IndexController. That's ONE Controller, so singular is only logical for the \Controller-Folder.
But isn't it technically a folder of controllers, like IndexController, MyOtherController, etc. Little fuss but just wondering why it changed from Zend 1 (most ZF1 setups I see have controllers plural). Likewise, we have multiple models and forms, all plural.
Reasoning is PSR-0, as mentioned above. Folder structure follows classnames. Classnames should be singular :)
Alright, I'm cool with that xD Thanks for the excellent answer!
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