Overview

CakePHP is an open source MVC framework. It makes developing, deploying and maintaining applications much easier. CakePHP has a number of libraries to reduce the overload of most common tasks.

Advantages of CakePHP

The advantages of using CakePHP are listed below −

• Open Source
• MVC Framework
• Templating Engine
• Caching Operations
• Search Engine Friendly URLs
• Easy CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) Database Interactions.
• Libraries and Helpers
• Built-in Validation
• Localisation
• Email, Cookie, Security, Session, and Request Handling Components
• View Helpers for AJAX, JavaScript, HTML Forms and More

CakePHP Request Cycle

The following illustration describes how a Request Lifecycle in CakePHP works −

A typical CakePHP request cycle starts with a user requesting a page or resource in your application. At high level, each request goes through the following steps −

• The webserver rewrite rules direct the request to webroot / index.php.
• Your application’s autoloader and bootstrap files are executed.
• Any dispatch filters that are configured can handle the request, and optionally generate a response.
• The dispatcher selects the appropriate controller and action based on routing rules.
• The controller’s action is called and the controller interacts with the required Models and Components.
• The controller delegates response creation to the View to generate the output resulting from the model data.
• The view uses Helpers and Cells to generate the response body and headers.
• The response is sent back to the client.