Creating reusable controllers

In Yii, you can create reusable controllers. If you are creating a lot of applications or controllers that are of the same type, moving all common code into a reusable controller will save you a lot of time.

In this recipe, we try to create a common CleanController, which will clear temporary directories and flush cached data.

Getting ready

Create a new yii2-app-basic application using the composer as described in the official guide at http://www.yiiframework.com/doc-2.0/guide-start-installation.html.

How to do it…

Carry out the following steps to create reusable controllers:

1. Create the cleaner directory and add the standalone CleanController controller:

   <?php
   namespace app\cleaner;
   
   use Yii;
   use yii\filters\VerbFilter;
   use yii\helpers\FileHelper;
   use yii\web\Controller;
   
   class CleanController extends Controller
   {
       public $assetPaths = ['@app/web/assets'];
       public $runtimePaths = ['@runtime'];
       public $caches = ['cache'];
   
       public function behaviors...