Controllers

Routing Configuration

To load routes defined as annotations in your controllers, add the following configuration to the main routing configuration file:

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# app/config/routing.yml
app:
    resource: '@AppBundle/Controller/'
    type:     annotation

This configuration will load annotations from any controller stored inside the src/AppBundle/Controller/ directory and even from its subdirectories. So if your application defines lots of controllers, it's perfectly OK to reorganize them into subdirectories:

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<your-project>/
├─ ...
└─ src/
   └─ AppBundle/
      ├─ ...
      └─ Controller/
         ├─ DefaultController.php
         ├─ ...
         ├─ Api/
         │  ├─ ...
         │  └─ ...
         └─ Backend/
            ├─ ...
            └─ ...

Template Configuration

The @Template annotation is useful, but also involves some magic. We don't think its benefit is worth the magic, and so recommend against using it.

Most of the time, @Template is used without any parameters, which makes it more difficult to know which template is being rendered. It also hides the fact that a controller should always return a Response object (unless you're using a view layer).

What does the Controller look like

Considering all this, here is an example of what the controller should look like for the homepage of our app:

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namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use AppBundle\Entity\Post;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route("/", name="homepage")
     */
    public function indexAction()
    {
        $posts = $this->getDoctrine()
            ->getRepository(Post::class)
            ->findLatest();

        return $this->render('default/index.html.twig', [
            'posts' => $posts,
        ]);
    }
}

Fetching Services

If you extend the base Controller class, you can access services directly from the container via $this->container->get() or $this->get(). But instead, you should use dependency injection to fetch services by type-hinting action method arguments:

By not fetching services directly from the container, you can make your services private, which has several advantages.

Using the ParamConverter

If you're using Doctrine, then you can optionally use the ParamConverter to automatically query for an entity and pass it as an argument to your controller.

For example:

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use AppBundle\Entity\Post;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

/**
 * @Route("/{id}", name="admin_post_show")
 */
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
    $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($post);

    return $this->render('admin/post/show.html.twig', [
        'post'        => $post,
        'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
    ]);
}

Normally, you'd expect a $id argument to showAction(). Instead, by creating a new argument ($post) and type-hinting it with the Post class (which is a Doctrine entity), the ParamConverter automatically queries for an object whose $id property matches the {id} value. It will also show a 404 page if no Post can be found.

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/**
 * @Route("/comment/{postSlug}/new", name="comment_new")
 */
public function newAction(Request $request, $postSlug)
{
    $post = $this->getDoctrine()
        ->getRepository(Post::class)
        ->findOneBy(['slug' => $postSlug]);

    if (!$post) {
        throw $this->createNotFoundException();
    }

    // ...
}

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use AppBundle\Entity\Post;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\ParamConverter;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

/**
 * @Route("/comment/{postSlug}/new", name="comment_new")
 * @ParamConverter("post", options={"mapping"={"postSlug"="slug"}})
 */
public function newAction(Request $request, Post $post)
{
    // ...
}

Pre and Post Hooks

If you need to execute some code before or after the execution of your controllers, you can use the EventDispatcher component to set up before and after filters.

Next: Templates