Compare Yii 2.0 vs Yii 1.1 and Benefits on Switching to Yii 2.0

Since its inception in 2008, the amazing PHP framework-Yii has shown constant improvements after many years of intensive developments with each version. The high-performance PHP framework is perfect for developing web 2.0 applications with quite an ease. As the framework is completely performance optimized, it is an excellent choice for project of any size. Yii has been built by keeping in mind the sophisticated enterprise applications, the developers still have full configuration control to conform to all the development guidelines.

The release of Yii 2.0 triggered a wave of excitement about its features and benefits. In this post we will review about the features and functionalities that lead to impressive performance metrics when compared to the previous versions of Yii and to other PHP frameworks. Comparing Yii 2.0 and Yii 1.1 jots down many factors of improvements that will answers all the questions regarding switching from 1.1 to 2.0.

Why the current version has drawn very positive attention and popularity? Why its adoption continues to grow at ever increasing rate?

After thousands of commits by multiple authors Yii 2.0 finally arrived into the picture in July 2014 with its Beta version. The framework is now finally ready to use. The new version Yii 2.0 is a complete rewrite over the previous version Yii 1.1 with retained simplicity and extensibility of Yii blended with latest technologies and features.

Differences between Yii 1.1 and Yii 2.0

PHP

Yii 2.0 requires PHP 5.4.0 or higher which makes use of latest features of PHP i.e. new PHP Namespaces to encapsulate objects and traits to reuse sets of methods in different classes, anonymous functions, SPL classes and interfaces, late static bindings and short array syntax [elements] are used instead of array [elements] . The server was updated from PHP 5.2 to 5.4. In Yii 2.0 the Namespace organization is far better than the previous Yii 1.1 version where a prefix C was used and the classes were in global namespaces.

While in Yii 2.0 the C prefix is not used in namespaces which are now based on directory structure. Also Yii 2.0 is completely re-written, so the required process applications are migrated from Yii 1.1.

EVENTS

In Yii 1.1 On-event method is used by the stable version where custom event names are not allowed to use. However, in Yii 2.0 it is not necessary to define events for On-event method. Any name can be used for the event with a handler attached to it and event handling can be done using J-query.

PATH ALIASES

Yii 2.0 increases the usage of path aliases to URLs and directory paths. It requires Alias name to

• Start with the character @
• Set apart aliases from URLs and normal directory paths
• Path aliases are mostly supported in Yii core code
• It is closely related to class namespace
• For any third-party library path alias may be defined as @Zend or @any third party library. This will allow Yii to auto load any class in that framework /library

VIEWS

The most important change in Yii 2.0 in this section is that now the special variable $this will refer to view object rather than referring to current controller or widget. The view object is of this type [[Yii\web\view]] representing the VIEW part of Model View Controller. To access controller or a widget in a view, $this->context can be used.

Unlike Yii 1.1, apart from using PHP as the primary template language, Yii 2.0 is also equipped with two more template engines- TWIG and SMARTY. You can refer to template engine section for more information.

CONTROLLERS

In Yii 1.1 the base controller class for action classes was [[yii\base\Action]], while Yii 2.0 uses [[yii\web\Controller]] as a base controller class. Because of this change now the controller action returns the content to be rendered instead of echoing it.

CONSOLE APPLICATIONS

Unlike Yii 1.1 console applications are now composed of controllers in Yii 2.0. Just like web applications! In Yii 2.0, in order to run console command yii is used where is a controller route.

QUERY BUILDER

Query builder was scattered among several classes in the previous version Yii 1.1 as compared to the current version Yii 2.0, where DB query is represented in terms of [[yii\db\Query|Query]]object.

INSTALLATION

Yii 2.0 the core framework installation as well as extensions is handled through Composer. In order to learn how to install Yii 2.0, please read this.
 In order to switch to Yii 2.0, here are some basic changes you need to follow convert a basic page:

The PHP-framework has come up with various up-gradations that grant some exceptional features to Yii 2.0 over Yii 1.1. It is easy to install, utilizes modern technologies, is highly extensible, simplifies security, gives better performance and reduces the development time. Yii framework assists in creating modern web applications quickly and easily. We have an expert team of developers that is well versed in making use of technologies based on Yii 2.0 framework.

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