How to Override Symfony's default Directory Structure

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Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.1 (the current stable version).

Symfony automatically ships with a default directory structure. You can easily override this directory structure to create your own. The default directory structure is:

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your-project/
├─ app/
│  ├─ cache/
│  ├─ config/
│  ├─ logs/
│  ├─ Resources/
│  │  └─ views/
│  └─ ...
├─ src/
│  └─ ...
├─ vendor/
│  └─ ...
└─ web/
   ├─ app.php
   └─ ...

Override the cache Directory

You can change the default cache directory by overriding the getCacheDir() method in the AppKernel class of your application:

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// app/AppKernel.php

// ...
class AppKernel extends Kernel
{
    // ...

    public function getCacheDir()
    {
        return $this->rootDir.'/'.$this->environment.'/cache';
    }
}

$this->rootDir is the absolute path to the app directory and $this->environment is the current environment (i.e. dev). In this case you have changed the location of the cache directory to app/{environment}/cache.

Caution

You should keep the cache directory different for each environment, otherwise some unexpected behavior may happen. Each environment generates its own cached configuration files, and so each needs its own directory to store those cache files.

Override the logs Directory

Overriding the logs directory is the same as overriding the cache directory. The only difference is that you need to override the getLogDir() method:

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// app/AppKernel.php

// ...
class AppKernel extends Kernel
{
    // ...

    public function getLogDir()
    {
        return $this->rootDir.'/'.$this->environment.'/logs';
    }
}

Here you have changed the location of the directory to app/{environment}/logs.

Override the Templates Directory

If your templates are not stored in the default app/Resources/views/ directory, use the twig.paths configuration option to define your own templates directory (or directories):

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# app/config/config.yml
twig:
    # ...
    paths: ["%kernel.root_dir%/../templates"]

Override the web Directory

If you need to rename or move your web directory, the only thing you need to guarantee is that the path to the app directory is still correct in your app.php and app_dev.php front controllers. If you simply renamed the directory, you're fine. But if you moved it in some way, you may need to modify these paths inside those files:

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require_once __DIR__.'/../Symfony/app/bootstrap.php.cache';
require_once __DIR__.'/../Symfony/app/AppKernel.php';

You also need to change the extra.symfony-web-dir option in the composer.json file:

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{
    ...
    "extra": {
        ...
        "symfony-web-dir": "my_new_web_dir"
    }
}

Tip

Some shared hosts have a public_html web directory root. Renaming your web directory from web to public_html is one way to make your Symfony project work on your shared host. Another way is to deploy your application to a directory outside of your web root, delete your public_html directory, and then replace it with a symbolic link to the web in your project.

Note

If you use the AsseticBundle, you need to configure the read_from option to point to the correct web directory:

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# app/config/config.yml

# ...
assetic:
    # ...
    read_from: '%kernel.root_dir%/../../public_html'

Now you just need to clear the cache and dump the assets again and your application should work:

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$ php app/console cache:clear --env=prod
$ php app/console assetic:dump --env=prod --no-debug

Override the vendor Directory

To override the vendor directory, you need to introduce changes in the app/autoload.php and composer.json files.

The change in the composer.json will look like this:

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{
    "config": {
        "bin-dir": "bin",
        "vendor-dir": "/some/dir/vendor"
    },
}

Then, update the path to the autoload.php file in app/autoload.php:

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// app/autoload.php
// ...
$loader = require '/some/dir/vendor/autoload.php';

Tip

This modification can be of interest if you are working in a virtual environment and cannot use NFS - for example, if you're running a Symfony application using Vagrant/VirtualBox in a guest operating system.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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