1. (Very Brief) Intro to Catalyst
http://www.catalystframework.org/

2. What's a Web Framework?
 a software framework for developming
dynamic websites
 E.g.
 Ruby on Rails (Ruby)
 Django (Python)
 Catalyst (Perl)

3. How Does It Fit?
Database
Web Browser
e.g. MySql
Select * FROM.. HTTP Requests
Perl application
using Catalyst

4. What Is Its Structure?
Each app has a directory structure that
separates model, view, and controller modules.
/lib/AppName/Model/
/lib/AppName/View/
/lib/AppName/Controller/Root.pm
/root/static/
/script/hello_server.pl
Makefile.PL

5. Model-View-Controller
 Model:
 Stores and retrieves data (e.g. in a database).
 Controller
 Receives/processes HTTP requests,
reading/manipulating data from the Model and
forwarding it to the View for presentation to the
user.
 View
 Formats data for presentation to the user (usually
by generating HTML, but could also generate PDF,
PNG, etc).

6. Install Catalyst (Ubuntu)
●
sudo aptitude install
libcatalyst­perl
libcatalyst­modules­perl
libconfig­general­perl

7. Create an Application
The ”catalyst.pl” script is used to create the
initial application structure:
$ catalyst.pl Hello
$ cd Hello

8. Start the Application
$ script/hello_server.pl

9. View the Application
Navigate to:
http://localhost:3000

10. How it Works
 When you access http://localhost:3000/,
Catalyst calls index() in
/lib/Hello/Controller/Root.pm:
sub index :Path :Args(0) {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
# Hello World
$c­>response­>body( $c­>welcome_message );
}

11. Extending the App
 Add http://localhost:3000/hello
 Just add a new subroutine called ”hello” to
Root.pm:
sub hello :Local {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
$c­>response­>body( ”Hello!!!!” );
}

12. What We've Got
 If in a web browser, you query
http://localhost:3000/foo,
 in lib/Hello/Controller/Root.pm, a subroutine
called ”foo()” is executed, and
 foo() generates HTML that is sent back to the
web browser.

13. What Else Can Catalyst Do?
 Access a database (e.g. MySql)
 Object-Relation Mapping
 Retrieve user-entered data from HTML forms
 Generate nice HTML using templates
 E.g. Using Template::Toolkit
 Integrate with the Apache web server
 FastCGI protocol

14. Questions?
 http://www.catalystframework.org/
 Catalyst::Manual

15. Thank You!
Zachary D. Blair
http://www.sfu.ca/~zblair