Custom BaseController in Silex - php

Question

I have created a simple aplication in Silex 1.3.4 and I want to have a base controller that will have a __construct method accepting $app and $request. All inheriting controllers then should have their respective constructors and calling the parent controller construct method.
//Use statements here....
class AppController
{
public function __construct(Application $app, Request $request){
$this->app = $app;
$this->request = $request;
}
}
Inheriting controllers would be written as below:
//Use statements here....
class ItemsController extends AppController
{
public function __construct(Application $app, Request $request){
parent::__construct($app, $request);
}
public function listAction()
{
//code here without having to pass the application and request objects
}
}
The approach I have decided on routing is as shown below:
$app->post(
'/items/list', 'MySilexTestDrive\Controller\ItemsController::listAction'
)->bind('list');
I was thinking of using the dispatcher and override some processes there and create my controller instances my own way but I do not have any idea how and if this is a great idea at all.
Anyone who has done something similar to this? Please help.

Answer 1

You can use ServiceControllerServiceProvider to define your controller as a service in the application. But you can't inject a Request in that way. BTW you can have more than one request and the request instance can change if you do sub-request. You can inject RequestStack instead, then call $requestStack->getCurrentRequest() when you need to get the current request.
$app = new Silex\Application();
abstract class AppController
{
protected $app;
protected $requestStack;
public function __construct(Silex\Application $app, Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\RequestStack $requestStack)
{
$this->app = $app;
$this->requestStack = $requestStack;
}
public function getRequest()
{
return $this->requestStack->getCurrentRequest();
}
}
class ItemsController extends AppController
{
public function listAction()
{
$request = $this->getRequest();
// ...
}
}
$app->register(new Silex\Provider\ServiceControllerServiceProvider());
$app['items.controller'] = $app->share(function() use ($app) {
return new ItemsController($app, $app['request_stack']);
});
$app->get('/items/list', "items.controller:listAction");
It makes sense to do such a thing? I do not think so. Especially if the framework gives you a request instance thanks to the type hinting. Just do
public function listAction(Application $app, Request $request)
{
// ...
}
and work with that.

Answer 2

You can try this too :
class BaseController
{
protected $app;
protected $request;
public function __call($name, $arguments)
{
$this->app = $arguments[0];
$this->request = $arguments[1];
return call_user_func_array(array($this,$name), [$arguments[0], $arguments[1]]);
}
protected function getSystemStatus(Application $app, Request $request)
{
[...]
}
[...]
}

Answer 3

#Rabbis and #Federico I have come up with a more elegant solution for this where I have created a BeforeControllerExecuteListener that I dispatch with my application instance. This listener accepts the FilterControllerEvent object and then from my base controller I call a method where I inject both the Silex Application and the request from the event.
public function onKernelController(FilterControllerEvent $event)
{
$collection = $event->getController();
$controller = $collection[0];
if($controller instanceof BaseControllerAwareInterface){
$controller->initialize($this->app, $event->getRequest());
}
}
The I simple dispatch this in my bootstrap file as shown below:
$app['dispatcher']->addSubscriber(new BeforeControllerExecuteListener($app));
This allows me to have access to this object without having to add them as parameters on my actions. Below is how one of my actions in the making looks:
public function listAction($customer)
{
$connection = $this->getApplication()['dbs']['db_orders'];
$orders= $connection->fetchAll($sqlQuery);
$results = array();
foreach($orders as $order){
$results[$order['id']] = $order['number'] . ' (' . $order['customer'] . ')';
}
return new JsonResponse($results);
}
If the currently running controller being called honors the BaseControllerAwareInterface interface as I have defined it then it means I should inject that controller with the Application and Request instances. I leave the controllers to deal with how they manage the Response of each action as with my example above I may need the Response object itself of JsonResponse even any other type of response so it entirely depends on the controller to take care of that.
Then the routing remains as simply as:
$app->match('/orders/list/{cusstomer}', 'Luyanda\Controller\OrdersController::listAction')
->bind('list-orders');