Usage

This chapter describes how to use Silex.

Installation

If you want to get started fast, download either the silex.zip or the silex.tgz archive and extract it, you should have the following directory structure:

├── composer.json
├── composer.lock
├── vendor
│   └── ...
└── web
    └── index.php

If you want more flexibility, use Composer instead. Create a composer.json:

{
    "require": {
        "silex/silex": "dev-master"
    }
}

And run Composer to install Silex and all its dependencies:

$ curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ composer.phar install

Bootstrap

To bootstrap Silex, all you need to do is require the vendor/autoload.php file and create an instance of Silex\Application. After your controller definitions, call the run method on your application:

// web/index.php

require_once __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';

$app = new Silex\Application();

// definitions

$app->run();

Then, you have to configure your web server (read below hints for Apache and IIS).

Tip

When developing a website, you might want to turn on the debug mode to ease debugging:

$app['debug'] = true;

Tip

If your application is hosted behind a reverse proxy and you want Silex to trust the X-Forwarded-For* headers, you will need to run your application like this:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

Request::trustProxyData();
$app->run();

Routing

In Silex you define a route and the controller that is called when that route is matched.

A route pattern consists of:

Pattern: The route pattern defines a path that points to a resource. The pattern can include variable parts and you are able to set RegExp requirements for them.
Method: One of the following HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT DELETE. This describes the interaction with the resource. Commonly only GET and POST are used, but it is possible to use the others as well.

The controller is defined using a closure like this:

function () {
    // do something
}

Closures are anonymous functions that may import state from outside of their definition. This is different from globals, because the outer state does not have to be global. For instance, you could define a closure in a function and import local variables of that function.

Note

Closures that do not import scope are referred to as lambdas. Because in PHP all anonymous functions are instances of the Closure class, we will not make a distinction here.

The return value of the closure becomes the content of the page.

There is also an alternate way for defining controllers using a class method. The syntax for that is ClassName::methodName. Static methods are also possible.

Example GET route

Here is an example definition of a GET route:

$blogPosts = array(
    1 => array(
        'date'      => '2011-03-29',
        'author'    => 'igorw',
        'title'     => 'Using Silex',
        'body'      => '...',
    ),
);

$app->get('/blog', function () use ($blogPosts) {
    $output = '';
    foreach ($blogPosts as $post) {
        $output .= $post['title'];
        $output .= '<br />';
    }

    return $output;
});

Visiting /blog will return a list of blog post titles. The use statement means something different in this context. It tells the closure to import the $blogPosts variable from the outer scope. This allows you to use it from within the closure.

Dynamic routing

Now, you can create another controller for viewing individual blog posts:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function (Silex\Application $app, $id) use ($blogPosts) {
    if (!isset($blogPosts[$id])) {
        $app->abort(404, "Post $id does not exist.");
    }

    $post = $blogPosts[$id];

    return  "<h1>{$post['title']}</h1>".
            "<p>{$post['body']}</p>";
});

This route definition has a variable {id} part which is passed to the closure.

When the post does not exist, we are using abort() to stop the request early. It actually throws an exception, which we will see how to handle later on.

Example POST route

POST routes signify the creation of a resource. An example for this is a feedback form. We will use the mail function to send an e-mail:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

$app->post('/feedback', function (Request $request) {
    $message = $request->get('message');
    mail('feedback@yoursite.com', '[YourSite] Feedback', $message);

    return new Response('Thank you for your feedback!', 201);
});

It is pretty straightforward.

Note

There is a SwiftmailerServiceProvider <providers/swiftmailer> included that you can use instead of mail().

The current request is automatically injected by Silex to the Closure thanks to the type hinting. It is an instance of Request, so you can fetch variables using the request get method.

Instead of returning a string we are returning an instance of Response. This allows setting an HTTP status code, in this case it is set to 201 Created.

Note

Silex always uses a Response internally, it converts strings to responses with status code 200 Ok.

Other methods

You can create controllers for most HTTP methods. Just call one of these methods on your application: get, post, put, delete. You can also call match, which will match all methods:

$app->match('/blog', function () {
    ...
});

You can then restrict the allowed methods via the method method:

$app->match('/blog', function () {
    ...
})
->method('PATCH');

You can match multiple methods with one controller using regex syntax:

$app->match('/blog', function () {
    ...
})
->method('PUT|POST');

Note

The order in which the routes are defined is significant. The first matching route will be used, so place more generic routes at the bottom.

Route variables

As it has been shown before you can define variable parts in a route like this:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function ($id) {
    ...
});

It is also possible to have more than one variable part, just make sure the closure arguments match the names of the variable parts:

$app->get('/blog/show/{postId}/{commentId}', function ($postId, $commentId) {
    ...
});

While it's not suggested, you could also do this (note the switched arguments):

$app->get('/blog/show/{postId}/{commentId}', function ($commentId, $postId) {
    ...
});

You can also ask for the current Request and Application objects:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function (Application $app, Request $request, $id) {
    ...
});

Note

Note for the Application and Request objects, Silex does the injection based on the type hinting and not on the variable name:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function (Application $foo, Request $bar, $id) {
    ...
});

Route variables converters

Before injecting the route variables into the controller, you can apply some converters:

$app->get('/user/{id}', function ($id) {
    // ...
})->convert('id', function ($id) { return (int) $id; });

This is useful when you want to convert route variables to objects as it allows to reuse the conversion code across different controllers:

$userProvider = function ($id) {
    return new User($id);
};

$app->get('/user/{user}', function (User $user) {
    // ...
})->convert('user', $userProvider);

$app->get('/user/{user}/edit', function (User $user) {
    // ...
})->convert('user', $userProvider);

The converter callback also receives the Request as its second argument:

$callback = function ($post, Request $request) {
    return new Post($request->attributes->get('slug'));
};

$app->get('/blog/{id}/{slug}', function (Post $post) {
    // ...
})->convert('post', $callback);

Requirements

In some cases you may want to only match certain expressions. You can define requirements using regular expressions by calling assert on the Controller object, which is returned by the routing methods.

The following will make sure the id argument is numeric, since \d+ matches any amount of digits:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function ($id) {
    ...
})
->assert('id', '\d+');

You can also chain these calls:

$app->get('/blog/show/{postId}/{commentId}', function ($postId, $commentId) {
    ...
})
->assert('postId', '\d+')
->assert('commentId', '\d+');

Default values

You can define a default value for any route variable by calling value on the Controller object:

$app->get('/{pageName}', function ($pageName) {
    ...
})
->value('pageName', 'index');

This will allow matching /, in which case the pageName variable will have the value index.

Named routes

Some providers (such as UrlGeneratorProvider) can make use of named routes. By default Silex will generate a route name for you, that cannot really be used. You can give a route a name by calling bind on the Controller object that is returned by the routing methods:

$app->get('/', function () {
    ...
})
->bind('homepage');

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function ($id) {
    ...
})
->bind('blog_post');

Note

It only makes sense to name routes if you use providers that make use of the RouteCollection.

Before, after and finish filters

Silex allows you to run code before, after every request and even after the response has been sent. This happens through before, after and finish filters. All you need to do is pass a closure:

$app->before(function () {
    // set up
});

$app->after(function () {
    // tear down
});

$app->finish(function () {
    // after response has been sent
});

The before filter has access to the current Request, and can short-circuit the whole rendering by returning a Response:

$app->before(function (Request $request) {
    // redirect the user to the login screen if access to the Resource is protected
    if (...) {
        return new RedirectResponse('/login');
    }
});

The after filter has access to the Request and the Response:

$app->after(function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    // tweak the Response
});

The finish filter has access to the Request and the Response:

$app->finish(function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    // send e-mails ...
});

Note

The filters are only run for the "master" Request.

Route middlewares

Route middlewares are PHP callables which are triggered when their associated route is matched. They are fired just before the route callback, but after the application before filters.

This can be used for a lot of use cases; for instance, here is a simple "anonymous/logged user" check:

$mustBeAnonymous = function (Request $request) use ($app) {
    if ($app['session']->has('userId')) {
        return $app->redirect('/user/logout');
    }
};

$mustBeLogged = function (Request $request) use ($app) {
    if (!$app['session']->has('userId')) {
        return $app->redirect('/user/login');
    }
};

$app->get('/user/subscribe', function () {
    ...
})
->middleware($mustBeAnonymous);

$app->get('/user/login', function () {
    ...
})
->middleware($mustBeAnonymous);

$app->get('/user/my-profile', function () {
    ...
})
->middleware($mustBeLogged);

The middleware function can be called several times for a given route, in which case they are triggered in the same order as you added them to the route.

For convenience, the route middlewares functions are triggered with the current Request instance as their only argument.

If any of the route middlewares returns a Symfony HTTP Response, it will short-circuit the whole rendering: the next middlewares won't be run, neither the route callback. You can also redirect to another page by returning a redirect response, which you can create by calling the Application redirect method.

If a route middleware does not return a Symfony HTTP Response or null, a RuntimeException is thrown.

Global Configuration

If a controller setting must be applied to all controllers (a converter, a middleware, a requirement, or a default value), you can configure it on $app['controllers'], which holds all application controllers:

$app['controllers']
    ->value('id', '1')
    ->assert('id', '\d+')
    ->requireHttps()
    ->method('get')
    ->convert('id', function () { // ... })
    ->middleware(function () { // ... })
;

These settings are applied to already registered controllers and they become the defaults for new controllers.

Note

The global configuration does not apply to controller providers you might mount as they have their own global configuration (see the Modularity paragraph below).

Error handlers

If some part of your code throws an exception you will want to display some kind of error page to the user. This is what error handlers do. You can also use them to do additional things, such as logging.

To register an error handler, pass a closure to the error method which takes an Exception argument and returns a response:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

$app->error(function (\Exception $e, $code) {
    return new Response('We are sorry, but something went terribly wrong.', $code);
});

You can also check for specific errors by using the $code argument, and handle them differently:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

$app->error(function (\Exception $e, $code) {
    switch ($code) {
        case 404:
            $message = 'The requested page could not be found.';
            break;
        default:
            $message = 'We are sorry, but something went terribly wrong.';
    }

    return new Response($message, $code);
});

You can restrict an error handler to only handle some Exception classes by setting a more specific type hint for the Closure argument:

$app->error(function (\LogicException $e, $code) {
    // this handler will only \LogicException exceptions
    // and exceptions that extends \LogicException
});

If you want to set up logging you can use a separate error handler for that. Just make sure you register it before the response error handlers, because once a response is returned, the following handlers are ignored.

Note

Silex ships with a provider for Monolog which handles logging of errors. Check out the Providers chapter for details.

Tip

Silex comes with a default error handler that displays a detailed error message with the stack trace when debug is true, and a simple error message otherwise. Error handlers registered via the error() method always take precedence but you can keep the nice error messages when debug is turned on like this:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

$app->error(function (\Exception $e, $code) use ($app) {
    if ($app['debug']) {
        return;
    }

    // logic to handle the error and return a Response
});

The error handlers are also called when you use abort to abort a request early:

$app->get('/blog/show/{id}', function (Silex\Application $app, $id) use ($blogPosts) {
    if (!isset($blogPosts[$id])) {
        $app->abort(404, "Post $id does not exist.");
    }

    return new Response(...);
});

Redirects

You can redirect to another page by returning a redirect response, which you can create by calling the redirect method:

$app->get('/', function () use ($app) {
    return $app->redirect('/hello');
});

This will redirect from / to /hello.

Forwards

When you want to delegate the rendering to another controller, without a round-trip to the browser (as for a redirect), use an internal sub-request:

use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernelInterface;

$app->get('/', function () use ($app) {
    // redirect to /hello
    $subRequest = Request::create('/hello', 'GET');

    return $app->handle($subRequest, HttpKernelInterface::SUB_REQUEST);
});

Tip

If you are using UrlGeneratorProvider, you can also generate the URI:

$request = Request::create($app['url_generator']->generate('hello'), 'GET');

Modularity

When your application starts to define too many controllers, you might want to group them logically:

use Silex\ControllerCollection;

// define controllers for a blog
$blog = new ControllerCollection();
$blog->get('/', function () {
    return 'Blog home page';
});
// ...

// define controllers for a forum
$forum = new ControllerCollection();
$forum->get('/', function () {
    return 'Forum home page';
});

// define "global" controllers
$app->get('/', function () {
    return 'Main home page';
});

$app->mount('/blog', $blog);
$app->mount('/forum', $forum);

mount() prefixes all routes with the given prefix and merges them into the main Application. So, / will map to the main home page, /blog/ to the blog home page, and /forum/ to the forum home page.

Note

When calling get(), match(), or any other HTTP methods on the Application, you are in fact calling them on a default instance of ControllerCollection (stored in $app['controllers']).

Another benefit is the ability to apply settings on a set of controllers very easily. Building on the example from the middleware section, here is how you would secure all controllers for the backend collection:

$backend = new ControllerCollection();

// ensure that all controllers require logged-in users
$backend->middleware($mustBeLogged);

Tip

For a better readability, you can split each controller collection into a separate file:

// blog.php
use Silex\ControllerCollection;

$blog = new ControllerCollection();
$blog->get('/', function () { return 'Blog home page'; });

return $blog;

// app.php
$app->mount('/blog', include 'blog.php');

Instead of requiring a file, you can also create a Controller provider </providers#controllers-providers>.

JSON

If you want to return JSON data, you can use the json helper method. Simply pass it your data, status code and headers, and it will create a JSON response for you:

$app->get('/users/{id}', function ($id) use ($app) {
    $user = getUser($id);

    if (!$user) {
        $error = array('message' => 'The user was not found.');
        return $app->json($error, 404);
    }

    return $app->json($user);
});

Streaming

It's possible to create a streaming response, which is important in cases when you cannot buffer the data being sent:

$app->get('/images/{file}', function ($file) use ($app) {
    if (!file_exists(__DIR__.'/images/'.$file)) {
        return $app->abort(404, 'The image was not found.');
    }

    $stream = function () use ($file) {
        readfile($file);
    };

    return $app->stream($stream, 200, array('Content-Type' => 'image/png'));
});

If you need to send chunks, make sure you call ob_flush and flush after every chunk:

$stream = function () {
    $fh = fopen('http://www.example.com/', 'rb');
    while (!feof($fh)) {
      echo fread($fh, 1024);
      ob_flush();
      flush();
    }
    fclose($fh);
};

Security

Make sure to protect your application against attacks.

Escaping

When outputting any user input (either route variables GET/POST variables obtained from the request), you will have to make sure to escape it correctly, to prevent Cross-Site-Scripting attacks.

Escaping HTML: PHP provides the htmlspecialchars function for this. Silex provides a shortcut escape method:
```
$app->get('/name', function (Silex\Application $app) {
    $name = $app['request']->get('name');
    return "You provided the name {$app->escape($name)}.";
});
```
If you use the Twig template engine you should use its escaping or even auto-escaping mechanisms.

Escaping JSON: If you want to provide data in JSON format you should use the Silex json function:

$app->get('/name.json', function (Silex\Application $app) {
    $name = $app['request']->get('name');
    return $app->json(array('name' => $name));
});

Webserver configuration

Apache

If you are using Apache you can use a .htaccess file for this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    Options -MultiViews

    RewriteEngine On
    #RewriteBase /path/to/app
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Note

If your site is not at the webroot level you will have to uncomment the RewriteBase statement and adjust the path to point to your directory, relative from the webroot.

Alternatively, if you use Apache 2.2.16 or higher, you can use the FallbackResource directive so make your .htaccess even easier:

FallbackResource index.php

nginx

If you are using nginx, configure your vhost to forward non-existent resources to index.php:

server { 
    index index.php

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
    }

    location ~ index\.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   /var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

IIS

If you are using the Internet Information Services from Windows, you can use this sample web.config file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <defaultDocument>
            <files>
                <clear />
                <add value="index.php" />
            </files>
        </defaultDocument>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="Silex Front Controller" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url="^(.*)$" ignoreCase="false" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

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usage.rst

usage.rst

Usage

Installation

Bootstrap

Routing

Example GET route

Dynamic routing

Example POST route

Other methods

Route variables

Route variables converters

Requirements

Default values

Named routes

Before, after and finish filters

Route middlewares

Global Configuration

Error handlers

Redirects

Forwards

Modularity

JSON

Streaming

Security

Escaping

Webserver configuration

Apache

nginx

IIS

Files

usage.rst

Latest commit

History

usage.rst

File metadata and controls

Usage

Installation

Bootstrap

Routing

Example GET route

Dynamic routing

Example POST route

Other methods

Route variables

Route variables converters

Requirements

Default values

Named routes

Before, after and finish filters

Route middlewares

Global Configuration

Error handlers

Redirects

Forwards

Modularity

JSON

Streaming

Security

Escaping

Webserver configuration

Apache

nginx

IIS