Recommended data structure/format for web MVC applications

Once you get into MVC, it can be worthwhile to explore patterns beyond the "Gang of Four" book, and get into Martin Fowler's "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture."

The Registry pattern can be useful to make well-known objects available throughout the object hierarchy. Essentially a substitute for using global data.

Many MVC frameworks also employ the Front Controller and the Two-Step View patterns.

The "Model" in MVC is best designed as the Domain Model pattern, although some frameworks (led by Rails) conflate the Model with the ActiveRecord pattern. I often advise that the relationship between a Model and ActiveRecord should be HAS-A, instead of IS-A.

Also read about ModelViewController at the Portland Pattern Repository wiki. There is some good discussion about MVC, object-orientation, and other patterns that complement MVC, such as Observer.

Here is an overly complex example that does a good job of organizing everything - at the cost of clarity and simplicity.

_{(source: gsdesign.ro)}