How to Decorate Services

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 3.x, which is no longer maintained.

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

When overriding an existing definition, the original service is lost:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
        # config/services.yaml
services:
    AppBundle\Mailer: ~

    # this replaces the old AppBundle\Mailer definition with the new one, the
    # old definition is lost
    AppBundle\Mailer:
        class: AppBundle\NewMailer
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsd:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="AppBundle\Mailer"/>

        <!-- this replaces the old AppBundle\Mailer definition with the new
             one, the old definition is lost -->
        <service id="AppBundle\Mailer" class="AppBundle\NewMailer"/>
    </services>
</container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
        // config/services.php
use AppBundle\Mailer;
use AppBundle\NewMailer;

$container->register(Mailer::class);

// this replaces the old AppBundle\Mailer definition with the new one, the
// old definition is lost
$container->register(Mailer::class, NewMailer::class);
    

Most of the time, that's exactly what you want to do. But sometimes, you might want to decorate the old one instead (i.e. apply the Decorator pattern). In this case, the old service should be kept around to be able to reference it in the new one. This configuration replaces App\Mailer with a new one, but keeps a reference of the old one as App\DecoratingMailer.inner:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        # config/services.yaml
services:
    AppBundle\Mailer: ~

    AppBundle\DecoratingMailer:
        # overrides the AppBundle\Mailer service
        # but that service is still available as AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner
        decorates: AppBundle\Mailer

        # pass the old service as an argument
        arguments: ['@AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner']

        # private, because usually you do not need to fetch AppBundle\DecoratingMailer directly
        public:    false
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsd:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="AppBundle\Mailer"/>

        <!-- overrides the AppBundle\Mailer service
             but that service is still available as AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner
             private, because usually you do not need to fetch AppBundle\DecoratingMailer directly -->
        <service id="AppBundle\DecoratingMailer"
            decorates="AppBundle\Mailer"
            public="false"
        >
            <!-- pass the old service as an argument -->
            <argument type="service" id="AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner"/>
        </service>

    </services>
</container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
        // config/services.php
use AppBundle\DecoratingMailer;
use AppBundle\Mailer;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Reference;

$container->register(Mailer::class);

// overrides the AppBundle\Mailer service
// but that service is still available as AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner
$container->register(DecoratingMailer::class)
    ->setDecoratedService(Mailer::class)
    // pass the old service as an argument
    ->addArgument(new Reference(DecoratingMailer::class.'.inner'))
    // private, because usually you do not need to fetch AppBundle\DecoratingMailer directly
    ->setPublic(false)
;
    

The decorates option tells the container that the AppBundle\DecoratingMailer service replaces the AppBundle\Mailer service. The old AppBundle\Mailer service is renamed to AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.inner so you can inject it into your new service.

Tip

The visibility (public) of the decorated AppBundle\Mailer service (which is an alias for the new service) will still be the same as the original AppBundle\Mailer visibility.

Note

The generated inner id is based on the id of the decorator service (AppBundle\DecoratingMailer here), not of the decorated service (AppBundle\Mailer here). You can control the inner service name via the decoration_inner_name option:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
        # config/services.yaml
services:
    AppBundle\DecoratingMailer:
        # ...
        decoration_inner_name: AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.wooz
        arguments: ['@AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.wooz']
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsd:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <!-- ... -->

        <service
            id="AppBundle\DecoratingMailer"
            decorates="AppBundle\Mailer"
            decoration-inner-name="AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.wooz"
            public="false"
        >
            <argument type="service" id="AppBundle\DecoratingMailer.wooz"/>
        </service>

    </services>
</container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
        // config/services.php
use AppBundle\DecoratingMailer;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Reference;

$container->register(DecoratingMailer::class)
    ->setDecoratedService(AppBundle\Mailer, DecoratingMailer::class.'.wooz')
    ->addArgument(new Reference(DecoratingMailer::class.'.wooz'))
    // ...
;
    

Decoration Priority

When applying multiple decorators to a service, you can control their order with the decoration_priority option. Its value is an integer that defaults to 0 and higher priorities mean that decorators will be applied earlier.

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        # config/services.yaml
Foo: ~

Bar:
    public: false
    decorates: Foo
    decoration_priority: 5
    arguments: ['@Bar.inner']

Baz:
    public: false
    decorates: Foo
    decoration_priority: 1
    arguments: ['@Baz.inner']
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
        <!-- config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="Foo"/>

        <service id="Bar" decorates="Foo" decoration-priority="5" public="false">
            <argument type="service" id="Bar.inner"/>
        </service>

        <service id="Baz" decorates="Foo" decoration-priority="1" public="false">
            <argument type="service" id="Baz.inner"/>
        </service>
    </services>
</container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        // config/services.php
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Reference;

$container->register(Foo::class)

$container->register(Bar::class)
    ->addArgument(new Reference(Bar::class.'.inner'))
    ->setPublic(false)
    ->setDecoratedService(Foo::class, null, 5);

$container->register(Baz::class)
    ->addArgument(new Reference(Baz::class.'.inner'))
    ->setPublic(false)
    ->setDecoratedService(Foo::class, null, 1);
    

The generated code will be the following:

        1
        $this->services[Foo::class] = new Baz(new Bar(new Foo()));
    

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

TOC

Version

Check Code Performance in Dev, Test, Staging & Production

Peruse our complete Symfony & PHP solutions catalog for your web development needs.