PHP rest server authentication

Question

I'm analyzing how Zend_Rest and Tonic work. There is no authentication implemented so I would like to add my own. My only problem is that they use Reflection and the when you call a method, you have to add the authentication call each time.

I was thinking to add the authentication check in the constructor but then you can't actually stop the method being called.

Anybody had this problem and came up with a good solution?

Answer 1

Why not extend Zend_Rest? You could then add a method to handle authentication when you deem it prudent. If you overload an existing Zend_Rest method, you can always instantiate the parent method at the end of your method so you don't have to recreate the entire method.

Answer 2

You can add the authentication code in a Zend front controller plugin. Depending on the authentication result you can redirect it to some other internal action. All your authentication rules will be at one place.

I have not found Zend_Rest to be easy to work with. I create custom resources in a routes.ini file and then handle them in the appropriate controller.