Override JSON view in RequestHandler in CakePHP

I want to rewrite JSON View in the RequestHandler. So there’s a file project_root/lib/JsonView.php. What I want to do is to

• Import the JsonView.php file in another file in project_root/app/View/CustomJsonView.php. (I think I could use App:import, would it be right ?)
• Choose this file as the custom in requestHandler like this:

public $components = array('RequestHandler' => array( 'viewClassMap' => array('json' => '/right/way/to/this/file/CustomJsonView', )));

But how do I write the right way for this file ?
I also saw this one https://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/components/request-handling.html#RequestHandlerComponent::viewClassMap
but there is no explanation about the right paths to the file. My CakePHP version is 2.4.4 .

Answer

You are not supposed to pass full paths, but “short classnames”, just like shown in the linked example, where ApiKit.MyJson refers to the MyJsonView view class in the ApiKit plugin, which could be located in app/Plugin/ApiKit/View/MyJsonView.php.

If you follow the conventions and place your CustomJsonView class in app/View/CustomJsonView.php as shown in the docs, you then just pass CustomJson as the short classname in the request handlers viewClassMap option.

Whether you use App::import() or just require to include the /lib/JsonView.php file, is up to you, both works. In any way you must make sure that whatever you are importing there doesn’t clash with existing class names (JsonView is a kinda reserved name as it already exists in the core), and that it is either following the CakePHP view class naming conventions, or you must extend it.

See also

• Cookbook > Views > Creating your own view classes
• Cookbook > Core Libraries > General Purpose > App Class> Loading Vendor Files