New in symfony 1.2: Small things matter (3)

Here comes the third edition of small things that might make you happy in symfony 1.2.

Tests coverage

When you test your code with unit or functional tests, it's quite handy to know if some code has not been covered.

As of symfony 1.2, the test:coverage task outputs the code coverage for some given tests:

./symfony test:coverage test/unit/model/ArticleTest.php lib/model/Article.php
 

The first argument is a test file or a test directory. The second one is the file or directory for which you want to know the code coverage.

If you want to know which lines are not covered, simply add the --detailed option:

./symfony test:coverage --detailed test/unit/model/ArticleTest.php lib/model/Article.php
 

Events

The event system introduced in symfony 1.1 makes the framework quite flexible. As new needs arise, new events are added:

• user.change_authentication: notified when a user authentication status changes. The event takes the authenticated flag as an argument after the change occurred.
• debug.web.load_panels
• debug.web.filter_logs

You can read the web debug toolbar post to learn more about the new debug.* events.

Forms

The form framework is made better by the addition of several methods that simplifies its usage in the templates:

The renderUsing() method renders the form using a specific formatter:

// in a template, the form will be rendered using the "list" form formatter 
<?php echo $form->renderUsing('list') ?>
 

The renderHiddenFields() method returns the HTML needed to display the hidden widgets:

<form action="<?php echo url_for('@some_route') ?>">
  <?php echo $form->renderHiddenFields() ?>
  <ul>
    <?php echo $form['name']->renderRow() ?>
  </ul>
  <input type="submit" />
</form>
 

sfForm now also implements the Iterator interface:

<ul>
  <?php foreach ($form as $field): ?>
    <li><?php echo $field ?></li>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
 

That's all for today.