symfony/FOSRestBundle : empty JSON response (using the symfony embodied serializer) - php

Question

I'm learning to build API with symfony (using FOSRestBundle). I'm following a french tutorial. Obviously, I first try to write the code by myself but even with a copy/paste, it keeps get me empty JSON array when I do a GET request to the appropriate route (rest-api.local/places).
The code works OK if I "format" the code in php array:
public function getPlacesAction(Request $request)
{
$places = $this->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager')
->getRepository('AppBundle:Place')
->findAll();
/* #var $places Place[] */
$formatted = [];
foreach ($places as $place) {
$formatted[] = [
'id' => $place->getId(),
'name' => $place->getName(),
'address' => $place->getAddress(),
];
}
return new JsonResponse($formatted);
}
but then I try to serialize directly $places, using the view handler of fost Rest (in config.yml)
fos_rest:
routing_loader:
include_format: false
view:
view_response_listener: true
format_listener:
rules:
- { path: '^/', priorities: ['json'], fallback_format: 'json' }
and changing my function in my controller to the following code, I get my JSON response but without anything between "{ [],[],[]}" (and I do have 3 entries in my DB):
public function getPlacesAction(Request $request)
{
$places = $this->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager')
->getRepository('AppBundle:Place')
->findAll();
/* #var $places Place[] */
return $places;
}
It's my first post on stackoverflow, so I hope my question is clear, Have a nice day.

Answer 1

In my app/config/services.yml I've added this:
services:
object_normalizer:
class: Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\GetSetMethodNormalizer
# Important! Tag this service or it wouldn't work
tags:
- { name: serializer.normalizer }
I still can't get why it works but all of a sudden I've got a nice json in response.