Database execution with Opencart - opencart

Question

I am using this module which allows me to run a simple blog / news feed in OC which does what I need apart from one thing, I need to display the first 4 articles on the homepage.
I have got the following so far:
<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . DB_PREFIX . "blog b LEFT JOIN " . DB_PREFIX . "blog_description bd ON (b.blog_id = bd.blog_id) WHERE b.status = 1 AND b.date <= NOW() AND bd.language_id = '" . (int)$this->config->get('config_language_id') . "'";
$query = $this->db->query($sql);
$blogs = array();
?>
<div class="box" id="news">
<div class="title">
<p>Latest News</p>
</div>
<div class="content">
<?php
foreach($query->rows as $result){
$blogs[] = $result;
}
?>
</div>
</div>
I have been developing OC templates for a while but modules are a whole new ball game for me, any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

First of all You should learn and understand how the MVC (or whatever it tends to be) is implemented in OpenCart - we have controllers, models and view templates.
Your approach is mixing all the controller and model part into a view template which is completely wrong.
So what should go where:
SQL query should go into the model
A new method for retrieving the data from the model and preparing it for the view template should go into the controller
Only HTML markup should be present in the view template
Let's say the extension You have downloaded has a controller here: catalog/controller/information/news.php - You should extend it's index() (or other appropriate) method (or even create a new one if needed) so that it calls the news model where You place Your new method getLastFourArticles() which should look like:
public function getLastFourArticles() {
$sql = "
SELECT *
FROM " . DB_PREFIX . "blog b
LEFT JOIN " . DB_PREFIX . "blog_description bd ON b.blog_id = bd.blog_id
WHERE b.status = 1
AND b.date <= NOW()
AND bd.language_id = " . (int)$this->config->get('config_language_id') . "
ORDER BY b.date DESC
LIMIT 4";
return $this->db->query($sql);
}
ORDER BY part will sort the blog entries from the newest to the latest and the LIMIT 4 part will make sure we only receive 4 rows maximally.
Now in the controller You should do something like:
$this->data['latest_entries'] = $this->model_information_news->getLastFourArticles();
while expecting the model to be catalog/model/information/news.php and that it is loaded ($this->load->model('information/news');).
Now in Your template only this part is needed:
<div class="box" id="news">
<div class="title">
<p>Latest News</p>
</div>
<div class="content">
<?php foreach($latest_entries as $entry) { ?>
<span class="date"><?php echo $entry['date']; ?></span>
<span class="entry"><?php echo $entry['text']; ?></span>
<?php } ?>
</div>
</div>
Keep in mind this is only instruction-like answer and You should pass in the right names and variables (and indices for the blog entry in the template).