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Symfony2 Essentials
Symfony2 Essentials

Symfony2 Essentials:

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Symfony2 Essentials

Chapter 2. Your First Pages

Most modern PHP frameworks follow a classic MVC concept. Symfony2 is also an MVC framework, so we do have controllers, models, and views. In this chapter, we will learn about these building blocks to see how Symfony2 organizes things:

  • Review of the default bundle structure and recommendations
  • Setting up the first routings and controllers for the home screen
  • Working with templates
  • Creating the initial database schema and models
  • Loading sample fixtures
  • Looking into migration throughout the chapter

Everything is a bundle

In the previous chapter, we dug in to the basic Symfony2 directory structure. Within the src directory, we already had two bundles: one called DemoBundle within the Acme subdirectory and the other one within AppBundle.

DemoBundle is a showcase of an example bundle that has existed since the beginning of Symfony2. It has been created to demonstrate how Symfony2 organizes things. AppBundle is a relatively new thing, introduced in Symfony 2.6 with a new concept of work.

Until the 2.6 version, it was recommended to contain a bundle within the vendor namespace. With Symfony 2.6 and its new best practices rules, it is now recommended to keep the custom application code within the handy AppBundle and create other bundles only if you want to create reusable code to be shared among your other projects.

Bundles don't have a fixed directory structure. In fact, you can have a bundle without most of the directories. If you create a utility bundle, it will probably have only...

The configuration format

Symfony2 can handle configuration in different formats: YAML, XML, and annotations. The main configuration files within app/config are provided with the YAML format. XML is usually harder to read, and is used only with third-party bundles.

While both YAML and XML configuration are pretty straightforward and need no explanations, we should stop by annotations for a while. As an example, see the AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController class:

namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;

class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route("/", name="homepage")
     */
    public function indexAction(Request $request)
    {
        // replace this example code with whatever you need
        return $this->render('default/index.html.twig', array(
            'base_dir' => realpath(
                $this-&gt...

Cleanups

Before we start writing our own app, we need to do some cleanups. We need to configure AppBundle to use the YAML configuration. While this is possible to switch the configuration format manually, we will remove the bundle (it doesn't contain much code yet), and we will generate a new bundle to demonstrate new bundle creation.

Recreating AppBundle

To recreate AppBundle, remove it first as follows:

$ rm -rf src/AppBundle

Remove it from app/AppKernel.php by removing the following line:

new AppBundle\AppBundle(),

Remove it's routing (app/config/routing.yml), which is as follows:

app:
    resource: @AppBundle/Controller/
    type:     annotation

Now we will need to generate it again. Issue the following command:

$ php app/console generate:bundle --namespace=AppBundle

Now provide the following answers to the generator:

Bundle name [AppBundle]: [Enter]
Target directory [.../todoapp/src]: [Enter]
Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation): yml
Do you want to generate the whole...

Routing

Like with many other frameworks based on the concept of MVC, before any controller is actually executed, Symfony2 needs to know how to handle it. The Symfony routing configuration starts within the app/config/routing_*.yml file. Depending on which environment you fire up, this version of routing is fired up. Usually, this environment file loads the main app/config/routing.yml file, which loads other files from vendors, bundles, and so on. You can, of course, directly define your own single routings here, but it's usually recommended to keep the bundle-specific routings within the bundle itself, while using the main routing only to import resources.

As per the example provided earlier in this chapter, we know our app tries to import another resource file defined as @AppBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml. The @BundleName syntax is a shortcut to the bundle namespace (in our case AppBundle) but namespace can be longer if you include the vendor in your name. Let's take a look...

Templates – the View layer

Each MVC framework offers the View layer, and Symfony2 is no different. In Symfony1, we were using plain PHP code. Symfony has introduced a new templating engine named Twig. The Symfony syntax is more elegant — it's shorter and designed to be cleaner than regular PHP code in templates.

Note

We can still use it now. However, it's not the recommended approach, as in most cases, you will not find examples of a working bundle code in pure PHP.

Let's take a look at the template code within our bundle, src/AppBundle/Resources/views/Default/index.html.twig:

Hello {{ name }}!

Yes, this is it. As you can figure out, {{ name }} outputs the variable name. It is an equivalent of <?php echo $name; ?>. The code actually doesn't do much, and it is not a valid HTML code (it just outputs some text). Let's modify it a little:

{% extends '::base.html.twig' %}

{% block body %}
Hello {{ name }}!
{% endblock body %}

Now try to fire http...

Everything is a bundle


In the previous chapter, we dug in to the basic Symfony2 directory structure. Within the src directory, we already had two bundles: one called DemoBundle within the Acme subdirectory and the other one within AppBundle.

DemoBundle is a showcase of an example bundle that has existed since the beginning of Symfony2. It has been created to demonstrate how Symfony2 organizes things. AppBundle is a relatively new thing, introduced in Symfony 2.6 with a new concept of work.

Until the 2.6 version, it was recommended to contain a bundle within the vendor namespace. With Symfony 2.6 and its new best practices rules, it is now recommended to keep the custom application code within the handy AppBundle and create other bundles only if you want to create reusable code to be shared among your other projects.

Bundles don't have a fixed directory structure. In fact, you can have a bundle without most of the directories. If you create a utility bundle, it will probably have only some...

The configuration format


Symfony2 can handle configuration in different formats: YAML, XML, and annotations. The main configuration files within app/config are provided with the YAML format. XML is usually harder to read, and is used only with third-party bundles.

While both YAML and XML configuration are pretty straightforward and need no explanations, we should stop by annotations for a while. As an example, see the AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController class:

namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;

class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route("/", name="homepage")
     */
    public function indexAction(Request $request)
    {
        // replace this example code with whatever you need
        return $this->render('default/index.html.twig', array(
            'base_dir' => realpath(
                $this->container
                     ->getParameter...

Cleanups


Before we start writing our own app, we need to do some cleanups. We need to configure AppBundle to use the YAML configuration. While this is possible to switch the configuration format manually, we will remove the bundle (it doesn't contain much code yet), and we will generate a new bundle to demonstrate new bundle creation.

Recreating AppBundle

To recreate AppBundle, remove it first as follows:

$ rm -rf src/AppBundle

Remove it from app/AppKernel.php by removing the following line:

new AppBundle\AppBundle(),

Remove it's routing (app/config/routing.yml), which is as follows:

app:
    resource: @AppBundle/Controller/
    type:     annotation

Now we will need to generate it again. Issue the following command:

$ php app/console generate:bundle --namespace=AppBundle

Now provide the following answers to the generator:

Bundle name [AppBundle]: [Enter]
Target directory [.../todoapp/src]: [Enter]
Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation): yml
Do you want to generate the whole directory...

Routing


Like with many other frameworks based on the concept of MVC, before any controller is actually executed, Symfony2 needs to know how to handle it. The Symfony routing configuration starts within the app/config/routing_*.yml file. Depending on which environment you fire up, this version of routing is fired up. Usually, this environment file loads the main app/config/routing.yml file, which loads other files from vendors, bundles, and so on. You can, of course, directly define your own single routings here, but it's usually recommended to keep the bundle-specific routings within the bundle itself, while using the main routing only to import resources.

As per the example provided earlier in this chapter, we know our app tries to import another resource file defined as @AppBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml. The @BundleName syntax is a shortcut to the bundle namespace (in our case AppBundle) but namespace can be longer if you include the vendor in your name. Let's take a look at the bundle...

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Description

Symfony is a free and open source PHP MVC web application development framework, which helps you create and maintain web applications and replace recurrent coding tasks. It integrates with an independent library, PHPUnit, to give you a rich testing framework. It is one of the best and most popular frameworks available on the market. Popular projects such as Drupal, Laravel, and phpBB also use Symfony. Its well-organized structure, clean code, and good programming practices make web development a breeze. Symfony2 Essentials will guide you through the process of creating a sample web application with Symfony2. You will create a To-Do application, using a few of the most commonly used Symfony2 components, and discover how to perform these development tasks efficiently. This book introduces you to the Symfony framework with a quick installation guide and a brief explanation of its key features including the MVC architecture, twig templating, dependency injection, and more. You will learn to manage dependencies, create controllers, views, and API calls, and secure your application. Next, you will go through the steps that are common for most web applications, which include writing CRUD and AJAX, handling forms, validation, translations, and the command-line interface, and e-mail sending features. The book ends with best practices, debugging, profiling, and deployment procedures. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to combine a Symfony2 framework with other open source code to speed up the development process.

Who is this book for?

This book is aimed at experienced programmers, especially those familiar with a closely related technology such as Yii or Laravel, but who now want to learn Symfony quickly.
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Publication date : Sep 08, 2015
Length: 158 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398767
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Length: 158 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398767
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Table of Contents

11 Chapters
1. The Symfony Framework – Installation and Configuration Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Your First Pages Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Twig Templating and Assets Handling Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Forms Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Security and Handling Users Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Translation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. AJAX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Command-line Operations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Symfony2 Profiler and Debugger Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Preparing an Application for Production Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2.7
(7 Ratings)
5 star 0%
4 star 28.6%
3 star 28.6%
2 star 28.6%
1 star 14.3%
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Madchu Oct 08, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
It took me two attempts to get through this, but that was mainly because I've been trying to learn everything and Symfony, at first glance, was a little daunting. The author covers things well, though, so I'm glad I gave this a second go. it complements well with an online course on Symfony from KNP University which is the best I've found so far on the subject.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
AlberT Nov 08, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Un libro che scorre facilmente, affronta più o meno tutti gli aspetti del ciclo di vita di una applicazione symfony ..Nulla di particolarmente illuminante, ma sicuramente una buona infarinatura generale.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
D. Cullen Feb 21, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
Mistakes in the examples make it tricky for someone completely new to symfony, but otherwise ok.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Spurgeon Jun 07, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
Good book for experienced PHP developers to acquaint themselves with Symfony. Considering that Symfony 3 is out some time back, this might be slightly outdated. Nevertheless, the foundations / fundamentals hold good.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Feb 15, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2
very basic book, you could find better guides on the web.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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