CakePHP Tutorial

“A modern PHP 7 framework offering a flexible database access layer and a powerful scaffolding system that makes building both small and complex systems simpler, easier and, of course, tastier. Build fast, grow solid with CakePHP!”

CakePHP as defined by the creators.

So CakePHP advertises itself as infinitely useful, but let’s put that to the test. Let’s dig into CakePHP!

Installing CakePHP

Before you get started...

What you need to know before getting started:

Basic PHP knowledge
Some SQL knowledge

You'll also need to make sure you have a supported database engine.

Supported Database Engines

MySQL 5.5+
SQLite 3
PostgreSQL 8.3+
SQLServer 2008+
Oracle (you will need a community plugin)

You will need the correct PDO extension installed for each of the above database drivers. Procedural APIs are not supported. The Oracle database is supported through the Driver for Oracle Database community plugin.

Install Methods

Using Composer

The creators suggest using Composer. You may need further documentation to understand and use Composer. You can use cURL to install composer if you have it. Simply run the following code snippet to use cURL to install Composer to install CakePHP. (Try saying that three times fast!).

curl -s https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Otherwise, follow the steps for your machine.

Mac Instuctions

Download composer.phar from the Composer website.
Run the installer script and follow Composer's instructions
Run this code snippet in terminal o install the CakePHP application skeleton in the cms directory of the current working directory: php composer.phar create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app cms

Windows Instructions

Download the Composer Windows Installer and follow it's instructions
Run the following code snippet in your terminal: composer self-update && composer create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app cms

GitHub Method

While Composer comes highly reccommended, there is a GitHub Page for those wishing to download a pre-installed version. Those downloads contain the app skeleton with all vendor packages installed. Also it includes the composer.phar so you have everything you need for further use.

Visual Learners

If you're lost and just want someone to show you rather than tell you, check out this youtube video on installing CakePHP 3.7.

Did it Work?

Check to make sure the installation was successful by checking the default home page. But first, start the development server.

cd /path/to/our/app
bin/cake server

For Windows, the command needs to be: bin\cake server (note the backslash).

This should start PHP’s built-in webserver on port 8765. Open up http://localhost:8765 in your web browser to see the welcome page.All the bullet points should be green chef hats other than CakePHP being able to connect to your database.

No...

Time to troubleshoot! The CakePHP site has more detailed documentation on how to start quickly and more throughly covers installation.

Yes!

Great, you're ready to code!

Now that you've got CakePHP on your computer, you can start learning how to use it!

CakePHP Projects

CakePHP Coding Conventions

Follow these coding conventions to get the most out of CakePHP.

Starting a Project

It's at this point that the knowledge of SQL become neccesary. You start by creating the database for your CMS. The clearest explaination for creating the database and database configuration can be found on CakePHP's website.

They also clearly walk you through creating the article controller, adding actions, and more!

Updating PHP

By default this is what your application composer.json looks like:

"require": { "cakephp/cakephp": "3.7.*" }

Each time you run php composer.phar update you will receive patch releases for this minor version. You can instead change this to ^3.7 to also receive the latest stable minor releases of the 3.x branch.