CakePHP with a React Page Embedded in a View

Note: As at 15 Aug 2022 I have an updated version of this at https://github.com/toggenation/embed-react-in-cake

CakePHP 3.x Middleware to allow for development and API access

src/Middleware/HttpOptionsMiddleware.php from https://www.munderwood.ca/index.php/2017/02/28/responding-to-http-options-requests-in-cakephp/

with additions inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/7454204

Setup

You need composer and node

git clone https://github.com/jmcd73/cakephp-react-backend.git
cd cakephp-react-backend
composer install #  installs CakePHP, DebugKit
git submodule init
git submodule update
cd cakephp-react-frontend
yarn install
yarn start

Create a database (DB name is "cake") using the config/schema/cake.sql file

mysql -uroot -p <yourpassword> < config/schema/cake.sql

Copy config/app.default.php to config/app.php and change the DB connection details to suit the above database

Run the default cake server

bin/cake server

templates/Articles/react.ctp contains the code to mount the react SPA (Single Page Application)

View the react() function block in src/Controller/ArticlesController.php to see how the react js and css is loaded from webroot/react/asset-manifest.json

For allowing fetch() to have access to the CakePHP endpoints see changes in

Cake File	Change
config/routes.php	Added resource route and json extension
src/Middleware/HttpOptionsMiddleware.php	Middleware to respond to OPTIONS and allow CORS
src/Application.php	Place middleware is hooked into cake