Avoid similar controller actions - php

Question

I am building a bundle for private messages between my users.
Here is my inbox action from my controller. What it does is fetches the current user's messages, it passes the query to KNPpaginator to display a part of them. I also save how many results to be displayed on the page in the database. One form is a dropdown that sends how many results to display per page. The other form is made of checkboxes and a dropdown with actions. Based on which action was selected, I pass the id's of the messages(selected checkboxes id's) to another function called markAction(which is also a page that can mark one single message by going to the specific url)
public function inboxAction(Request $request)
{
$messages = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('PrivateMessageBundle:Message');
$mymsg = $messages->findMyMessages($this->getUser());
$message_settings = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('PrivateMessageBundle:MessageSettings');
$perpage = $message_settings->findOneBy(array('user' => $this->getUser()));
$pagerform = $this->createForm(new MessageSettingsType(), $perpage);
$pagerform->handleRequest($request);
if ($pagerform->isValid()) {
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$em->persist($perpage);
$em->flush();
}
$paginator = $this->get('knp_paginator');
$pagination = $paginator->paginate(
$mymsg,
$request->query->get('page', 1)/*page number*/,
$perpage ? $perpage->getResPerPage() : 10/*limit per page*/,
array('defaultSortFieldName' => 'a.sentAt', 'defaultSortDirection' => 'desc')
);
$form = $this
->createForm(
new ActionsType(),
$mymsg->execute()
);
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
$data = $form->getData();
$ids = array();
foreach ($data['checkboxes'] as $checkbox) {
$ids[] = $checkbox->getId();
}
$action = $data['inboxactions'];
$this->markAction($action, $ids);
return $this->redirectToRoute('private_message_inbox');
}
return $this->render(
'#PrivateMessage/inbox.html.twig',
array(
'messageList' => $pagination,
'form' => $form->createView(),
'pagerform' => $pagerform->createView(),
)
);
}
And the mark action user in my inbox controller. Based on one parameter, I apply the respective action to the second parameter, which is one message if the page was called through routing, and can be an array of messages if called through my inboxAction. I do a few consistency checks, and then mark my message.
public function markAction($action, $msgs)
{
if (!$msgs) {
$this->addFlash(
'error',
'Select at least one message!'
);
return;
} else {
if (!$action) {
$this->addFlash(
'error',
'Select one action to apply to your items!'
);
return;
} else {
$messages = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('PrivateMessageBundle:Message');
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$msg = $messages->findBy(array('receiver' => $this->getUser(), 'id' => $msgs));
$good = 0;
foreach ($msg as $isforme) {
$good++;
switch ($action) {
case 'spam': {
if ($isforme->getIsSpam() == false) {
$isforme->setIsSpam(true);
if (!$isforme->getSeenAt()) {
$isforme->setSeenAt(new \DateTime('now'));
}
$em->persist($isforme);
}
break;
}
case 'unspam': {
if ($isforme->getIsSpam() == true) {
$isforme->setIsSpam(false);
$em->persist($isforme);
}
break;
}
case 'viewed': {
if ($isforme->getSeenAt() == false) {
$isforme->setSeenAt(new \DateTime('now'));
$em->persist($isforme);
}
break;
}
case 'unviewed': {
if ($isforme->getSeenAt() != false) {
$isforme->setSeenAt(null);
$em->persist($isforme);
}
break;
}
default: {
$this->addFlash(
'error',
'There was an error!'
);
return;
}
}
$em->flush();
}
$this->addFlash(
'notice',
$good.' message'.($good == 1 ? '' : 's').' changed!'
);
}
}
if ($action == 'unspam') {
return $this->redirectToRoute('private_message_spam');
} else {
return $this->redirectToRoute('private_message_inbox');
}
}
Being kind of new to symfony, I'm not sure how good my markAction function is. I feel like it can be simplier, but I'm not sure how to make it.
Now, my actual question. How can I render other pages of my bundle, like Sent or Spam messages? The only lines from the inboxAction that I have to change are
$mymsg = $messages->findMyMessages($this->getUser());
to have it return spam or sent messages by the user, for instance.
and
return $this->render(
'#PrivateMessage/inbox.html.twig',...
so I actually return the respective page's view. I have already made the other pages and copied the code in the other actions, but I think I can make it so I write this code a single time, but don't know how.
Everything else is EXACTLY the same. How can I not copy and paste this code in all of the other actions and make it a bit more reusable?

Answer 1

You could strart to change your routing more dynamic:
# app/config/routing.yml
mailclient:
path: /mailclient/{page}
defaults: { _controller: AppBundle:Mailclient:index, page: "inbox" }
Resulting that this routes:
/mailclient
/mailclient/inbox
/mailclient/sent
/mailclient/trash
will all call the same action.
Now your method (Action) will get an extra parameter:
public function indexAction($page, Request $request)
{
// ...
}
Through this parameter you know what the user likes to see. Now you can start to write your code more dynamic. You can consider to add some private functions to your controller class that you can call from the indexAction or
you could simply create your own classes too.