Java Reference
In-Depth Information
MVC Libraries
Model-View-Controller
(MVC) is a design pattern that's been used for a long time in
server-side languages. It is a common way of designing software and used by server-side
frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Django. In recent years it has been used in JavaScript
code to make it easier to organize large-scale web applications.
MVC separates an application into three distinct, independent components that interact with
each other, as shown in
Figure 15.1
:
•
Models
are objects that implement the functionality for creating, reading, updating,
and deleting (known as CRUD tasks), specific pieces of information about the ap-
plication, as well as any other associated logic and behavior. In a to-do list applica-
tion, for example, there would be a task model providing methods to access all the
information about the tasks such as names, due dates, and completed tasks. This
data will often be stored in a database or some other container.
•
Views
provide a visual representation of the model showing all the relevant inform-
ation. In a web application, this would be the HTML displayed on a web page.
Views also provide a way for users to interact with an application, usually via forms.
In a to-do list application, the views would display the tasks as an HTML list with
check boxes that a user could tick to say a task had been completed.
•
Controllers
link models and views together by communicating between them. They
respond to events, which are usually inputs from a user (entering some data into a
form, for example), process the information, and then update the model and view
accordingly. In a to-do list application, the controller functions would respond to the
event of a user clicking on a check box and then inform the model that a task had
been completed. The model would then update the information about that task.
