Deploying Zend Framework With Apache ANT

I recently wrote a quick ANT script to deploy a personal Zend Framework project and thought I would share the code. If you are just getting started with Agile development, ANT builds/deployments are a great first step with immediate benefits. The following example is bare-bones, it does not run tests or do anything complicated but it should give you something that works and can be built upon.

For more ANT goodness check out my other posts: Deploying Drupal with ANT, CSS Cache Busting & Drupal, Using YUI Compressor with ANT.

Methodology

For my project I need ANT to do the following:

• Checkout From Subversion HEAD Or A Specific Revision Of The Project
• Remove Files That Should Not Go To Production (Documentation)
• Configure Zend For The Correct Environment
• Securely Transfer Code To Production Server

I think this is a very common use-case so… onto the code!
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Load Routes From Routes.ini Config File In Zend Application Bootstrap

I spent waaaay to many hours trying to load routes via a config file in Zend Framework 1.10 and I think this might be a problem with the documentation I was following on the Zend Framework site. More on that later, let’s get to my solution first.

Here is the use case I am addressing: I want to store routes in a .ini file and have this file loaded via the Application Bootstrap. Zend Application allows me to store these in the application.ini file but I have a large number and want to store them separately.

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Managing CSS and JavaScript files within a Zend Framework App – A Different Approach: View Plugin

Reading this article on the Zend Framework Blog Managing CSS and JavaScript files within a Zend Framework App, speaking personally as a front-end developer I would use a different system.

In my approach loading up different CSS/JS files per controller is the exception not the rule. We load additional CSS/JS when we need to do something very special, for example a page with a flash file uploader.

I also think loading dependent files outside of the controller can make it difficult for other developers to work on your code. You can’t just look at the controller to see what other CSS/JS dependencies are being used, you need to check the file system.

My approach is a View Plugin that manages a standard set of CSS/JS for every layout. Additional CSS/JS if needed are added in the controllers.

Onto the code!
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