How to render a Template without a custom Controller

Usually, when you need to create a page, you need to create a controller and render a template from within that controller. But if you're rendering a simple template that doesn't need any data passed into it, you can avoid creating the controller entirely, by using the built-in FrameworkBundle:Template:template controller.

For example, suppose you want to render a AcmeBundle:Static:privacy.html.twig template, which doesn't require that any variables are passed to it. You can do this without creating a controller:

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acme_privacy:
    pattern: /privacy
    defaults:
        _controller: FrameworkBundle:Template:template
        template: 'AcmeBundle:Static:privacy.html.twig'

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

    <route id="acme_privacy" pattern="/privacy">
        <default key="_controller">FrameworkBundle:Template:template</default>
        <default key="template">AcmeBundle:Static:privacy.html.twig</default>
    </route>
</routes>

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use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;

$collection = new RouteCollection();
$collection->add('acme_privacy', new Route('/privacy', array(
    '_controller'  => 'FrameworkBundle:Template:template',
    'template'     => 'AcmeBundle:Static:privacy.html.twig',
)));

return $collection;

The FrameworkBundle:Template:template controller will simply render whatever template you've passed as the template default value.

You can of course also use this trick when rendering embedded controllers from within a template. But since the purpose of rendering a controller from within a template is typically to prepare some data in a custom controller, this probably isn't useful, except to easily cache static partials, a feature which will become available in Symfony 2.2.

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{% render url('acme_privacy') %}

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<?php echo $view['actions']->render(
    $view['router']->generate('acme_privacy', array(), true)
) ?>