converters.rst

@ParamConverter

Usage

The @ParamConverter annotation calls converters to convert request parameters to objects. These objects are stored as request attributes and so they can be injected as controller method arguments:

use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\ParamConverter;

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{id}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", class="SensioBlogBundle:Post")
 */
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
}

Several things happens under the hood:

• The converter tries to get a SensioBlogBundle:Post object from the request attributes (request attributes comes from route placeholders -- here id);
• If no Post object is found, a 404 Response is generated;
• If a Post object is found, a new post request attribute is defined (accessible via $request->attributes->get('post'));
• As for any other request attribute, it is automatically injected in the controller when present in the method signature.

If you use type hinting as in the example above, you can even omit the @ParamConverter annotation altogether:

// automatic with method signature
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
}

To detect which converter is run on a parameter the following process is run:

• If an explicit converter choice was made with @ParamConverter(converter="name") the converter with the given name is chosen.
• Otherwise all registered parameter converters are iterated by priority. The supports() method is invoked to check if a param converter can convert the request into the required parameter. If it returns true the param converter is invoked.

Built-in Converters

The bundle has two built-in converter, the Doctrine one and a DateTime converter.

Doctrine Converter

Converter Name: doctrine.orm

The Doctrine Converter attempts to convert request attributes to Doctrine entities fetched from the database. Two different approaches are possible:

• Fetch object by primary key
• Fetch object by one or several fields which contain unique values in the database.

The following algorithm determines which operation will be performed.

• If an {id} parameter is present in the route, find object by primary key.
• If an option 'id' is configured and matches route parameters, find object by primary key.
• If the previous rules do not apply, attempt to find one entity by matching route parameters to entity fields. You can control this process by configuring exclude parameters or a attribute to field name mapping.

By default, the Doctrine converter uses the default entity manager. This can be configured with the entity_manager option:

use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\ParamConverter;

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{id}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", class="SensioBlogBundle:Post", options={"entity_manager" = "foo"})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
}

If the placeholder has not the same name as the primary key, pass the id option:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{post_id}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", class="SensioBlogBundle:Post", options={"id" = "post_id"})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
}

This also allows you to have multiple converters in one action:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{id}/comments/{comment_id}")
 * @ParamConverter("comment", class="SensioBlogBundle:Comment", options={"id" = "comment_id"})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post, Comment $comment)
{
}

In the example above, the post parameter is handled automatically, but the comment is configured with the annotation since they can not both follow the default convention.

If you want to match an entity using multiple fields use mapping:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{date}/{slug}/comments/{comment_slug}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", options={"mapping": {"date": "date", "slug": "slug"}})
 * @ParamConverter("comment", options={"mapping": {"comment_slug": "slug"}})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post, Comment $comment)
{
}

If you are matching an entity using several fields, but you want to exclude a route parameter from being part of the criteria:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{date}/{slug}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", options={"exclude": ["date"]})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post, \DateTime $date)
{
}

If you want to specify the repository method to use to find the entity (for example, to add joins to the query), you can add the repository_method option:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/{id}")
 * @ParamConverter("post", class="SensioBlogBundle:Post", options={"repository_method" = "findWithJoins"})
 */
public function showAction(Post $post)
{
}

DateTime Converter

Converter Name: datetime

The datetime converter converts any route or request attribute into a datetime instance:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/archive/{start}/{end}")
 */
public function archiveAction(\DateTime $start, \DateTime $end)
{
}

By default any date format that can be parsed by the DateTime constructor is accepted. You can be stricter with input given through the options:

/**
 * @Route("/blog/archive/{start}/{end}")
 * @ParamConverter("start", options={"format": "Y-m-d"})
 * @ParamConverter("end", options={"format": "Y-m-d"})
 */
public function archiveAction(\DateTime $start, \DateTime $end)
{
}

Creating a Converter

All converters must implement the Sensio\\Bundle\\FrameworkExtraBundle\\Request\\ParamConverter\\ParamConverterInterface:

namespace Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Request\ParamConverter;

use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\ConfigurationInterface;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

interface ParamConverterInterface
{
    function apply(Request $request, ConfigurationInterface $configuration);

    function supports(ConfigurationInterface $configuration);
}

The supports() method must return true when it is able to convert the given configuration (a ParamConverter instance).

The ParamConverter instance has three information about the annotation:

• name: The attribute name;
• class: The attribute class name (can be any string representing a class name);
• options: An array of options

The apply() method is called whenever a configuration is supported. Based on the request attributes, it should set an attribute named $configuration->getName(), which stores an object of class $configuration->getClass().

To register your converter service you must add a tag to your service

# app/config/config.yml
services:
    my_converter:
        class:        MyBundle\Request\ParamConverter\MyConverter
        tags:
            - { name: request.param_converter, priority: -2, converter: my_converter }

<service id="my_converter" class="MyBundle\Request\ParamConverter\MyConverter">
    <tag name="request.param_converter" priority="-2" converter="my_converter" />
</service>

You can register a converter by priority, by name (attribute "converter") or both. If you don't specifiy a priority or name the converter will be added to the converter stack with a priority of 0. To explicitly disable the registration by priority you have to set priority="false" in your tag definition.

Tip

Use the DoctrineParamConverter class as a template for your own converters.