Before I begin I just want to note that this document is a work in progress. It requires version 5.3+ of php as it utilizies anonymous functions and it requires the use of limonade-php v0.5.1
Getting started with Limonade-php
Your first step is to simply download Limonade-php from GitHub. Make sure you grab the latest version (v0.5.1 at the time of writing this) and extract it. You’ll want to go into the lib directory and copy limonade.php and the limonade directory. The directory contains some utilities for limonade-php, but is not necessary. Infact, once your application is complete properly, I’d suggest you delete this folder and leave just the limonade.php file behind.
The standard first project
When it comes to programming, your first project is always Hello, World. So let’s not break that tradition. Create a new directory called “hello_world” and in it create a directory called “lib”. You can paste in the file and directory you copied earlier. Now let’s create a file called “index.php” and open it up in an editor of your choice.
Step 1: Setup
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<?php
include('lib/limonade.php');
?>
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Simple enough, but if you visit that page in your browser, you’ll see that it doesn’t really do anything. So we’re going to add a bit more code.
Step 2:
First we’re going to say that whenever a user visits that page using a “GET” header, we’re going to display the text “Hello, World!”. In a nutshell, GET is one of the four recognized header types for REST implementations. GET is for retrieving information about a resource. For more information about REST, check out this post and combine it with this
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<?php
include('lib/limonade.php');
dispatch_get('/', function() {
return "Hello, World!";
});
run();
?>
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Did you just pass that function a function as an argument?
Why yes. Yes I did. It’s a new feature of PHP 5.3 that allows for anonymous functions. You’ll see the same thing happen in JavaScript all the time, so if you work with that, you should find it familiar. Essentially an anonymous function is just a function without a name. There is no way to call it without assigning it to a variable. So, by passing it to dispatch_get as an argument, it is assigned to a variable within limonade-php.
Finally, on line 9 we add the run(); command. This tells limonade-php to start.
Now if you visit index.php in your browser, you’ll see the text “Hello, World!”
Step 3: Profit
Now that you’ve gotten a taste of how easy it is to build something using limonade-php let me just say, that it really is that easy to build just about anything. Because of limonade-php’s adherence to RESTful principles it becomes ridiculously easy to build an API or a dynamic website, or just about anything in between. It even integrates very well with other libraries and components. It allows for rapid prototyping (I created this ([source])(https://github.com/AngeloR/Lemontrac) in only a few hours – including the time it took to learn limonade-php) and it has become an important part of my php toolbox.
Now what?
Well, it’s all well and good to display “Hello, World!” but it’s kind of useless to everyone who wants to build something useful. It hardly scratches the surface of what is possible with limonade-php. So, to properly show you what you can do with it, let’s build a very simple todo application. But with a twist. First we’re going to build a todo application API. Then we’re going to build a website that consumes this API using JavaScript and jQuery.
Stay tuned for part 2!
