calling plugin's controller from AppController in CakePHP 3

Question

I have written a plugin for CakePHP 3.4.*.

This plugin will check for Database configuration has been set or not, if not then It you move user through a GUI interface to setup database configuration just like wordpress.

The plugin is working perfectly, but it has to be loaded manually by visiting url of the plugin

http://example.com/installer/install

where installer is the plugin name which is calling InstallController class inside plugins/Installer/src/Controller/ directory

Now what I want to check it automatically and redirect user to the Installation interface if database connection couldn't be established.

For that I have written a function inside InstallController of plugin's controller

public function installationCheck() {
    $db = ConnectionManager::get('default');

    if(!$db->connect()) {
        if(Configure::read('Database.installed') == true) {
            $this->Flash->error(__("Database connection couldn't be established. Please, re-configure it to start the application"));
            return $this->redirect(['action' => 'index']);
        } else {
            $this->Flash->error(__("Please configure your database settings for working of your application"));
            return $this->redirect(['action' => 'index']);
        }
    }
    return true;
}

Now the Question.

What is the easiest way to call this method from /app/src/Controller/AppController.php file of the main application?

Answer 1

Simple answer, you don't!

Shared controller logic belongs either in AppController itself, a Component or a Trait. The AppController should never being accessing methods defined in other controllers, these shouldn't be made accessible to it.

For what you're doing you probably want to do this in a component that you can load via your AppController or the relevant controller.

So your component would look something like:-

<?php
namespace Installer\Controller\Component;

use Cake\Controller\Component;

class InstallComponent extends Component
{
    public function installationCheck()
    {
        // Method's logic
    }
}

Which you would then load in the relevant controller:-

public function initialize()
{
    parent::initialize();
    $this->loadComponent('Installer.Install');
}

Then you can use the component's method from the controller like:-

$this->Install->installationCheck();

Answer 2

You should not Do that!

If you need to access another controller I recommend you to move that functionality to a Component, that are packages of logic that are shared between controllers.