Creating forms in Symfony2 Part I

Symfony2 command line tool has provided a excellent way to create forms without too much bother about the code.

 

 

  Now i am going to create all forms(CRUD) for "blog_user_level" table. Guess how much time will I spend for it. OK  keep that in your mind.

First of all i create entity for the "blog_user_level" to do that run fallowing command in the terminal.

     $ php app/console generate:doctrine:entity

then it will ask fallowing parameters.

    The Entity shortcut name: AcmeUserBundle:BlogUserLevel
    Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation) [annotation]: xml
    New field name (press <return> to stop adding fields): name
    Field type [string]:
    Field length [255]:

    New field name (press <return> to stop adding fields): level
    Field type [string]: integer

    New field name (press <return> to stop adding fields):

    Do you want to generate an empty repository class [no]?

    Do you confirm generation [yes]? 

then update the database
    $ php app/console doctrine:schema:update --force
now we want to create crud. to do that
    $ php app/console generate:doctrine:crud --overwrite

then it will ask some parameters

    The Entity shortcut name: AcmeUserBundle:BlogUserLevel
    Do you want to generate the "write" actions [no]? yes
    Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation) [annotation]: xml
    Routes prefix [/bloguserlevel]:
    ...........

  
Sometimes it will ask to update routing.yml file. yeh that's all.
now go to the http://localhost:8000/bloguserlevel/ and test CRUD application.

Creating a bundle in Symfony2

Overview
    Learning with a sample project is a best way to learn a project. Here I am going to create a blog system. Here is my ERD. actually this is not mine, i have downloaded .mwb file from http://www.jarrodoberto.com and littlebit modification to it. thanks jarrod.

I have divided these into two separate section, user and blog. So i have to create to bundles. here i am going to crate "User" bundle.
  
Symfony2 command line tool provided a good support to developers. they don't need to create all file manual. just have to execute few commands in the terminal and will get a bundle easily.

open the terminal and change your directory to the project folder, then execute fallowing command

$ php app/console generate:bundle

then it will ask parameter one by one. in this time I create a bundle called "Document". the bundle will automatically be created inside the "src" folder.
and the bundle must be located inside the "Acme" folder and it's name must be ended with suffix "Bundle". at this time command line tool ask  namespace value, here it is "Acme/UserBundle". then it will ask as fallows

Bundle namespace: Acme/UserBundle
Bundle name [AcmeUserBundle]:
Target directory [/var/www/kanasblog/src]:
Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation): yml
Do you want to generate the whole directory structure [no]? Yes
Do you confirm generation [yes]? Yes
Confirm automatic update of your Kernel [yes]?
Confirm automatic update of the Routing [yes]? 

default values has shown inside the squire brackets.

thats it.. the bundle has generated now. to check that open the fallowing url in your browser

 http://localhost:8000/hello/kanasblog

it should display "kanasblog" in the browser..

Including javascript and css in Symfony2

    when installing the framework by default it comes with a bundle called "DemoBundle". I used that bundle to locate css and javascript. here i want to load twiter Bootstrap. i downloaded the bootstrap and uncompressed and place it in the "/<project folder>/src/Acme/DemoBundle/Resources/public/css/" folder. So now we want to call to bootstrap globally. "/samitiya/app/Resources/views/base.html.twig" file is a file that can be callable in every view file. And another this i don't want to mess "base.html.twig" file. So I create two separate files called
"/src/Acme/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Template/css.html.twig" and
"/src/Acme/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Template/js.html.twig".

then include them into the  "base.html.twig". before include them we need to set "AcmeDemoBundle" as a asset. Open the
"/<project folder>/app/config/config.yml" file and find the
"# Assetic Configuration", then include the "AcmeDemoBundle" in to "bundles" list. this is how it looks like.

assetic:
    debug:          %kernel.debug%
    use_controller: false
    bundles:        [AcmeDemoBundle]
    #java: /usr/bin/java
    filters:
        cssrewrite: ~
        #closure:
        #    jar: %kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/compiler.jar
        #yui_css:
        #    jar: %kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor-2.4.7.jar




Ok, lets include above file into "base.html.twig". Open the base.html.twig file, include fallowing lines to the <head></head> tags.


        {% include 'AcmeDemoBundle:Template:js.html.twig' %}
        {% include 'AcmeDemoBundle:Template:css.html.twig' %}

this is twig, If you want to include something we want to use {%include %} tag.
when we call for the bundle then it will automatically look at the its "Resources/views/" folder. we user ":" instead of "/" for separate directories.

Now we can include js files to "Template:js.html.twig" and css files to "Template:css.html.twig". Open the
"/src/Acme/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Template/js.html.twig" include the fallowing content

{% javascripts
    '@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/public/js/jquery-2.0.1.min.js'
    '@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/public/css/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.min.js'
    '@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/public/css/bootstrap/js/bootstrap-dropdown.js'
         
 %}
    <script type="text/javascript" src="{{ asset_url }}"></script>
{% endjavascripts %}

yes, this is not like twig include this require full path and start the bundle name with "@" sign. "bootstrap" require "jquery". So i have load first. "bootstrap-dropdown.js" wants to create drop downs. thats why i have these two files.
then open the css.html.twig file include fallowing content.

{% stylesheets
    '@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/public/css/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css'
    '@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/public/css/bootstrap/css/bootstrap-responsive.css'
   
 filter='cssrewrite' %}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset_url }}" />
{% endstylesheets %}

thats it. to check inclusion reload any web page in the browser(firefox) and view the page source. above five files must be shown in the <head> tags and click on the the file links. they must load the appreciate js and css files. 

database setup in symfony2

MySQL
     this is very very simple. Open the "/<project folder>/app/config/parameters.yml" and provide the appropriate values. this is my values

parameters:
    database_driver:   pdo_mysql
    database_host:     127.0.0.1
    database_port:     ~
    database_name:     kanasblog
    database_user:     root
    database_password: ~

then go to the  project folder and execute the fallowing command



    $ php app/console doctrine:database:create

oh wait. i forgot to tell something. in php there two most popular ORM frameworks available. Doctrine   and Propel . both frameworks can be used with Symfony2 very easily. in here i used Doctrine and it will install automatically. If it is not doctrine bundle can be be added using composer.

mongodb
    Actually this is bit tufter to install than mysql. First of all php mongodb extension should be installed to php(both command line and working php).
then update php.ini file by including "extension=mongo.so". to find the ini file location
    $ php -i |grep php\.ini

Ok, let's install mongodb bundle usong composer. So we have to update the "composer.json" file. include fallowing to "require" dictionary.

        "doctrine/mongodb-odm": "1.0.*@dev",
        "doctrine/mongodb-odm-bundle": "3.0.*@dev"

then update
     $ php composer.phar update

now we have to do two more things. register notation and driver..
to register annotation open the "app/autoload.php" file and  insert fallowing content just below the "AnnotationRegistry::registerLoader(array($loader, 'loadClass'));" line

use Doctrine\ODM\MongoDB\Mapping\Driver\AnnotationDriver;
AnnotationDriver::registerAnnotationClasses();

to register bundle open the "/app/AppKernel.php" file and add fallowing to "$bundle" array

    new Doctrine\Bundle\MongoDBBundle\DoctrineMongoDBBundle(),

finaly set database parameters for mongodb. open the "/app/config/config.yml"
and add fallowing

doctrine_mongodb:
    connections:
        default:
            server: mongodb://localhost:27017
            options: {}
    default_database: samitiya
    document_managers:
        default:
            auto_mapping: true


thats it. execute fallowing in the terminal.

    $ php app/console doctrine:mongodb:schema:create


for more information visit page DoctrineMongoDBBundle