Silex with Doctrine and PHP classes - php

Question

So, I'm trying to get around in Silex. Just learn the way it works and I'm trying to use Doctrine in it. I can use it on the index.php, but I'd also like to use it in my classes. These lines are used in the normal root file (index.php):
$images = $app['db']->prepare("SELECT * FROM images");
$images->execute();
$images = $images->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_CLASS, \AI\Models\Image::class);
So that would give me the ability to do something with the images. But I don't want to work this way. I'd like classes to do it all for me, so that I just script some methods which do all the hard work for me. That would let me just run one line for each Route in index.php
The problem is that I don't know how to connect with Doctrine from inside my classes. Because there is no '$app' in there. I think it would be weird to start the app inside of a class.
So let's say I wanted to create a user class. This SQL would give me all the users: "SELECT * FROM users". But how would I use Doctrine inside the User class?
<?php
namespace Models;
class User {
public function find($user){
if($user) {
$field = (is_numeric($user)) ? 'id' : 'username';
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users";
$data = // RUN QUERY $SQL
if($data->count()) {
$this->_data = $data->all();
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
}

Answer 1

In your index.php follow these steps.
Create instance of the silex application:
$app = new Silex\Application();
$app->register(new Silex\Provider\ServiceControllerServiceProvider());
Set the database configuration:
$config = new \Doctrine\DBAL\Configuration();
$connParams = array(
'driver' => 'driver',
'dbname' => 'dbname',
'host' => 'host',
'user' => 'user',
'password' => 'pass',
'charset' => 'charset',
'port' => 'port'
);
Connect to database:
$conn = \Doctrine\DBAL\DriverManager::getConnection($connParams, $config);
Now you have different ways to make this db instance accessible throughout your app. You can whether make a global variable adding the instance in it:
global $dbcon;
$dbcon = $conn;
Or simply add it to the $app itself:
$app['dbcon'] = $conn;
Furthermore you might want to add a constructor to your models like this:
public function __construct($db)
{
$this->db = $db;
}

Answer 2

You would need to inject those instances in your controller.
I looked through the docs real quick and think I found what you need.
Here is a link to the documentation page : http://silex.sensiolabs.org/doc/2.0/providers/service_controller.html.
the documentation page explains everything you need to know to get what you want to achieve.