A Gentle Introduction to symfony Build professional websites faster with PHP and symfony symfony 1.3 & 1.4 This PDF is brought to you by License: GFDL Version: gentle-introduction-1.4-en-2010-10-13 Table of Contents ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introducing Symfony..................................................................... 11 Symfony in Brief ...................................................................................................... 11 Symfony Features............................................................................................................... 11 Who Made Symfony and Why? ........................................................................................... 12 The Symfony Community.................................................................................................... 13 Is Symfony for Me?............................................................................................................. 14 Fundamental Concepts ............................................................................................ 14 PHP..................................................................................................................................... 14 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) ................................................................................ 14 Magic Methods................................................................................................................... 15 Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) ..................................................................................... 15 Rapid Application Development (RAD)............................................................................... 16 YAML .................................................................................................................................. 17 Summary.................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 2: Exploring Symfony’s Code............................................................. 19 The MVC Pattern ..................................................................................................... 19 MVC Layering..................................................................................................................... 20 Layer Separation Beyond MVC .......................................................................................... 23 Symfony’s MVC Implementation ........................................................................................ 26 Symfony Core Classes ........................................................................................................ 28 Code Organization ................................................................................................... 29 Project Structure: Applications, Modules, and Actions...................................................... 29 File Tree Structure ............................................................................................................. 29 Common Instruments .............................................................................................. 33 Parameter Holders ............................................................................................................. 33 Constants............................................................................................................................ 35 Class Autoloading............................................................................................................... 35 Summary.................................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 3: Running Symfony .......................................................................... 37 Prerequisites............................................................................................................ 37 Third-Party Software .......................................................................................................... 37 Command Line Interface .................................................................................................... 37 PHP Configuration.............................................................................................................. 38 Symfony Installation ................................................................................................ 38 Initializing the Project Directory ........................................................................................ 38 Choosing the Symfony Version........................................................................................... 39 Choosing the Symfony Installation Location ...................................................................... 39 Installing Symfony.............................................................................................................. 39 Project Setup ........................................................................................................... 41 Project Creation ................................................................................................................. 41 Configuring the Database................................................................................................... 41 Application Creation........................................................................................................... 42 ----------------- Brought to you by Table of Contents iii Directory Structure Rights ................................................................................................. 42 Web Server Configuration ....................................................................................... 43 The ugly Way ...................................................................................................................... 43 The secure Way .................................................................................................................. 43 Using the Sandbox................................................................................................... 46 Summary.................................................................................................................. 47 Chapter 4: The Basics Of Page Creation......................................................... 48 Creating a Module Skeleton .................................................................................... 48 Adding a Page.......................................................................................................... 50 Adding an Action ................................................................................................................ 50 Adding a Template.............................................................................................................. 51 Passing Information from the Action to the Template ....................................................... 52 Linking to Another Action........................................................................................ 53 Getting Information from the Request .................................................................... 54 Summary.................................................................................................................. 55 Chapter 5: Configuring Symfony .................................................................... 56 The Configuration System ....................................................................................... 56 YAML Syntax and Symfony Conventions............................................................................ 57 Help, a YAML File Killed My App!...................................................................................... 60 Overview of the Configuration Files........................................................................ 61 Project Configuration ......................................................................................................... 61 Application Configuration .................................................................................................. 61 Module Configuration......................................................................................................... 63 Environments........................................................................................................... 64 What Is an Environment? ................................................................................................... 64 Configuration Cascade ....................................................................................................... 66 The Configuration Cache ......................................................................................... 68 Accessing the Configuration from Code .................................................................. 69 The sfConfig Class .......................................................................................................... 69 Custom Application Settings and app.yml ....................................................................... 70 Tips for Getting More from Configuration Files...................................................... 71 Using Constants in YAML Configuration Files................................................................... 71 Using Scriptable Configuration.......................................................................................... 72 Browsing Your Own YAML File .........................................................................................