WebApp Directory structure

Let us use www.openbook.pub as an illustration of the preferred structure of PHP WebApps, built upon the Yii Framework. The WebApp has an old version 1.8.2, a current version 2.0.1, while version 2.1 is currently under development.

/openbook.pub/
/openbook.pub/index.php
/openbook.pub/ad5min_.php
/openbook.pub/...

/mydevsite.com/
/mydevsite.com/index.php
/mydevsite.com/ad5min_.php
/mydevsite.com/...

/openbook.app/
/openbook.app/1.8.2/

/openbook.app/1.8.2/frontend/
/openbook.app/1.8.2/backend/
/openbook.app/1.8.2/common/
/openbook.app/1.8.2/vendor/
/openbook.app/1.8.2/.git/

/openbook.app/2.0.1/frontend/
/openbook.app/2.0.1/backend/
/openbook.app/2.0.1/common/
/openbook.app/2.0.1/vendor/
/openbook.app/2.0.1/.git/

/openbook.app/2.3/

The entry scripts are very simple. The public will access the frontend via /openbook.pub/index.php

require_once (dirname(__DIR__)./openbook.app/2.0.1/frontend/web/production.php');

Maintenance can be done by the administrator on the backend via /openbook.pub/ad5min.php. We have chosen the odd ad5min_.php filename to make the entry harder to guess for hackers.

require_once (dirname(__DIR__)./openbook.app/2.0.1/backend/web/production.php');

Development is done via /mydevsite.com/index.php

require_once (dirname(__DIR__)./openbook.app/2.3/frontend/web/development.php');

Each version of the webapp is complete and independent of other versions. It has its own vendor/ with the Yii framework and other dependencies. Once the version has been published vendor/ will remain unchanged.

Each version also has its own git registry. It can be changed and committed without affect other versions.

The above structure achieves the following

• Development, testing and production run on the same server.
• DT&P are separated as to never interfere.
• It is easy and to upgrade to a next version, or even to revert back to a previous version.

Note that frontend and backend are two separated webapps. When possible, they will share code in common/. But a LoginForm.php may be different, and each will have it in their own models/.

On the other hand, the differences between running an app in development or production mode are limited.

• production.php versus development.php as entry script.
• These entry scripts will set different values for environment variables like YII_ENV_DEV.
• These entry script will include identical config/params.php files, but they may configure differently per if-ten-else statements.
• No other differences; the modes share identical code.

A bare-bones sample application may be copied from /x0data.app/1.0. For example by cp -r x0data.app/1.0 riverbankneighborhood.app/2.0. The Yii manual specifies the following to-do list for this bare-bones webapp:

• Create a new database and adjust the components['db'] configuration in common/config/main-local.php accordingly.
• Apply migrations with console command yii migrate.
• Set document roots of your web server: for frontend /path/to/yii-application/frontend/web/ and using the URL http://frontend/ for backend /path/to/yii-application/backend/web/ and using the URL http://backend/ (We will not set the document roots because we have chosen a different structure; as per above.)