Symfony2 Jobeet Day 10: The Forms

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.
Any website has forms, from the simple contact form to the complex ones with lots of fields. Writing forms is also one of the most complex and tedious task for a web developer: you need to write the HTML form, implement validation rules for each field, process the values to store them in a database, display error messages, repopulate fields in case of errors and much more …

In Day 3 of this tutorial we used the doctrine:generate:crud command to generate a simple CRUD controller for our Job entity. This also generated a Job form that you can find in /src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Form/JobType.php file.

Customizing the Job Form

The Job form is a perfect example to learn form customization. Let’s see how to customize it, step by step.

First, change the Post a Job link in the layout to be able to check changes directly in your browser:

<a href="{{ path('ibw_job_new') }}">Post a Job</a>

Then, change the ibw_job_show route parameters in createAction of the JobController to match the new route we created in day 5 of this tutorial:

// ...

public function createAction(Request $request)
{
    $entity  = new Job();
    $form = $this->createForm(new JobType(), $entity);
    $form->bind($request);

    if ($form->isValid()) {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $em->persist($entity);
        $em->flush();

        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_show', array(
            'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
            'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
            'id' => $entity->getId(),
            'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
        )));
    }

    return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:new.html.twig', array(
        'entity' => $entity,
        'form'   => $form->createView(),
    ));
}

// ...

By default, the Doctrine generated form displays fields for all the table columns. But for the Job form, some of them must not be editable by the end user. Edit the Job form as you see below:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleForm;

use SymfonyComponentFormAbstractType;
use SymfonyComponentFormFormBuilderInterface;
use SymfonyComponentOptionsResolverOptionsResolverInterface;

class JobType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add('type')
            ->add('category')
            ->add('company')
            ->add('logo')
            ->add('url')
            ->add('position')
            ->add('location')
            ->add('description')
            ->add('how_to_apply')
            ->add('token')
            ->add('is_public')
            ->add('email')
        ;
    }

    public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults(array(
            'data_class' => 'IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob'
        ));
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return 'job';
    }
}

The form configuration must sometimes be more precise than what can be introspected from the database schema. For example, the email column is a varchar in the schema, but we need this column to be validated as an email. In Symfony2, validation is applied to the underlying object (e.g. Job). In other words, the question isn’t whether the form is valid, but whether or not the Job object is valid after the form has applied the submitted data to it. To do this, create a new validation.yml file in the Resources/config directory of our bundle:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    properties:
        email:
            - NotBlank: ~
            - Email: ~

Even if the type column is also a varchar in the schema, we want its value to be restricted to a list of choices: full time, part time or freelance.

// ...
use IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob;

class JobType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add('type', 'choice', array('choices' => Job::getTypes(), 'expanded' => true))
            // ...
    }

    // ...

}

For this to work, add the following methods in the Job entity:

     // ...

    public static function getTypes()
    {
        return array('full-time' => 'Full time', 'part-time' => 'Part time', 'freelance' => 'Freelance');
    }

    public static function getTypeValues()
    {
        return array_keys(self::getTypes());
    }

    // ...

The getTypes() method is used in the form to get the possible types for a Job and getTypeValues() will be used in the validation to get the valid values for the type field.

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    properties:
        type:
            - NotBlank: ~
            - Choice: { callback: getTypeValues }
        email:
            - NotBlank: ~
            - Email: ~

For each field, symfony automatically generates a label (which will be used in the rendered tag). This can be changed with the label option:

    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            // ...
            ->add('logo', null, array('label' => 'Company logo'))
            // ...
            ->add('how_to_apply', null, array('label' => 'How to apply?'))
            // ...
            ->add('is_public', null, array('label' => 'Public?'))
            // ...
    }

You should also add validation constraints for the rest of the fields:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    properties:
        category:
            - NotBlank: ~
        type:
            - NotBlank: ~
            - Choice: {callback: getTypeValues}
        company:
            - NotBlank: ~
        position:
            - NotBlank: ~
        location:
            - NotBlank: ~
        description:
            - NotBlank: ~
        how_to_apply:
            - NotBlank: ~
        token:
            - NotBlank: ~
        email:
            - NotBlank: ~
            - Email: ~
        url:
            - Url: ~

The constraint applied to url field enforces the URL format to be like this: http://www.sitename.domain or https://www.sitename.domain.

After modifying validation.yml, you need to clear the cache.

Handling File Uploads in Symfony2

To handle the actual file upload in the form, we will use a virtual file field. For this, we will add a new file property to the Job entity:

    // ...

    public $file;

    // ...

Now we need to replace the logo with the file widget and change it to a file input tag:

// ...

    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            // ...
            ->add('file', 'file', array('label' => 'Company logo', 'required' => false))
            // ...
    }
// ...

To make sure the uploaded file is a valid image, we will use the Image validation constraint:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    properties:
        # ...
        file:
            - Image: ~

When the form is submitted, the file field will be an instance of UploadedFile. It can be used to move the file to a permanent location. After this, we will set the job logo property to the uploaded file name.

// ...

    public function createAction(Request $request)
    {
        // ...

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

            $entity->file->move(__DIR__.'/../../../../web/uploads/jobs', $entity->file->getClientOriginalName());
            $entity->setLogo($entity->file->getClientOriginalName());

            $em->persist($entity);
            $em->flush();

            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_show', array(
                'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
                'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
                'id' => $entity->getId(),
                'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
            )));
        }
        // ...
    }

// ...

You need to create the logo directory (web/uploads/jobs/) and check that it is writable by the web server.
Even if this implementation works, a better way is to handle the file upload using the Doctrine Job entity.

First, add the following to the Job entity:

class Job
{
    // ... 
    protected function getUploadDir()
    {
        return 'uploads/jobs';
    }

    protected function getUploadRootDir()
    {
        return __DIR__.'/../../../../web/'.$this->getUploadDir();
    }

    public function getWebPath()
    {
        return null === $this->logo ? null : $this->getUploadDir().'/'.$this->logo;
    }

    public function getAbsolutePath()
    {
        return null === $this->logo ? null : $this->getUploadRootDir().'/'.$this->logo;
    }
}

The logo property stores the relative path to the file and is persisted to the database. The getAbsolutePath() is a convenience method that returns the absolute path to the file while the getWebPath() is a convenience method that returns the web path, which can be used in a template to link to the uploaded file.

We will make the implementation so that the database operation and the moving of the file are atomic: if there is a problem persisting the entity or if the file cannot be saved, then nothing will happen. To do this, we need to move the file right as Doctrine persists the entity to the database. This can be accomplished by hooking into the Job entity lifecycle callback. Like we did in day 3 of the Jobeet tutorial, we will edit the Job.orm.yml file and add the preUpload, upload and removeUpload callbacks in it:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    # ...

    lifecycleCallbacks:
        prePersist: [ preUpload, setCreatedAtValue, setExpiresAtValue ]
        preUpdate: [ preUpload, setUpdatedAtValue ]
        postPersist: [ upload ]
        postUpdate: [ upload ]
        postRemove: [ removeUpload ]

Now run the generate:entities doctrine command to add these new methods to the Job entity:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

Edit the Job entity and change the added methods to the following:

class Job
{
    // ...

    /**
     * @ORMPrePersist
     */
    public function preUpload()
    {
         if (null !== $this->file) {
             $this->logo = uniqid().'.'.$this->file->guessExtension();
         }
    }

    /**
     * @ORMPostPersist
     */
    public function upload()
    {
        if (null === $this->file) {
            return;
        }

        // If there is an error when moving the file, an exception will
        // be automatically thrown by move(). This will properly prevent
        // the entity from being persisted to the database on error
        $this->file->move($this->getUploadRootDir(), $this->logo);

        unset($this->file);
    }

    /**
     * @ORMPostRemove
     */
    public function removeUpload()
    {
        if(file_exists($file)) {
            if ($file = $this->getAbsolutePath()) {
                unlink($file);
            }
        }    
    }
}

The class now does everything we need: it generates a unique filename before persisting, moves the file after persisting, and removes the file if the entity is ever deleted. Now that the moving of the file is handled atomically by the entity, we should remove the code we added earlier in the controller to handle the upload:

// ...

    public function createAction(Request $request)
    {
        $entity  = new Job();
        $form = $this->createForm(new JobType(), $entity);
        $form->bind($request);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

            $em->persist($entity);
            $em->flush();

            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_show', array(
                'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
                'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
                'id' => $entity->getId(),
                'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
            )));
        }

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:new.html.twig', array(
            'entity' => $entity,
            'form'   => $form->createView(),
        ));
    }

// ...

The Form Template

Now that the form class has been customized, we need to display it. Open the new.html.twig template and edit it:

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% form_theme form _self %}

{% block form_errors %}
{% spaceless %}
    {% if errors|length > 0 %}
        <ul class="error_list">
            {% for error in errors %}
                <li>{{ error.messageTemplate|trans(error.messageParameters, 'validators') }}</li>
            {% endfor %}
        </ul>
    {% endif %}
{% endspaceless %}
{% endblock form_errors %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/job.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <h1>Job creation</h1>
    <form action="{{ path('ibw_job_create') }}" method="post" {{ form_enctype(form) }}>
        <table id="job_form">
            <tfoot>
                <tr>
                    <td colspan="2">
                        <input type="submit" value="Preview your job" />
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tfoot>
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.category) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.category) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.category) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.type) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.type) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.type) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.company) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.company) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.company) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.file) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.file) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.file) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.url) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.url) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.url) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.position) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.position) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.position) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.location) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.location) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.location) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.description) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.description) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.description) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.how_to_apply) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.how_to_apply) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.how_to_apply) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.token) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.token) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.token) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.is_public) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.is_public) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.is_public) }}
                        <br /> Whether the job can also be published on affiliate websites or not.
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(form.email) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(form.email) }}
                        {{ form_widget(form.email) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    {{ form_end(form) }}
{% endblock %}

We could render the form by just using the following line of code, but as we need more customization, we choose to render each form field by hand.

{{ form(form) }}

By printing form(form), each field in the form is rendered, along with a label and error message (if there is one). As easy as this is, it’s not very flexible (yet). Usually, you’ll want to render each form field individually so you can control how the form looks.

We also used a technique named form theming to customize how the form errors will be rendered. You can read more about this in the official Symfony2 documentation.

Do the same thing with the edit.html.twig template:

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% form_theme edit_form _self %}

{% block form_errors %}
{% spaceless %}
    {% if errors|length > 0 %}
        <ul class="error_list">
            {% for error in errors %}
                <li>{{ error.messageTemplate|trans(error.messageParameters, 'validators') }}</li>
            {% endfor %}
        </ul>
    {% endif %}
{% endspaceless %}
{% endblock form_errors %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/job.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <h1>Job edit</h1>
    <form action="{{ path('ibw_job_update', { 'id': entity.id }) }}" method="post" {{ form_enctype(edit_form) }}>
        <table id="job_form">
            <tfoot>
                <tr>
                    <td colspan="2">
                        <input type="submit" value="Preview your job" />
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tfoot>
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.category) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.category) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.category) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.type) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.type) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.type) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.company) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.company) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.company) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.file) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.file) }}
                        {{ form(edit_form.file) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.url) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.url) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.url) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.position) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.position) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.position) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.location) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.location) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.location) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.description) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.description) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.description) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.how_to_apply) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.how_to_apply) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.how_to_apply) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.token) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.token) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.token) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.is_public) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.is_public) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.is_public) }}
                        <br /> Whether the job can also be published on affiliate websites or not.
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.email) }}</th>
                    <td>
                        {{ form_errors(edit_form.email) }}
                        {{ form_widget(edit_form.email) }}
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    {{ form_end(edit_form) }}
{% endblock %}

 

The Form Action

We now have a form class and a template that renders it. Now, it’s time to actually make it work with some actions. The job form is managed by four methods in the JobController:

  • newAction: Displays a blank form to create a new job
  • createAction: Processes the form (validation, form repopulation) and creates a new job with the user submitted values
  • editAction: Displays a form to edit an existing job
  • updateAction: Processes the form (validation, form repopulation) and updates an existing job with the user submitted values

When you browse to the /job/new page, a form instance for a new job object is created by calling the createForm() method and passed to the template (newAction).

When the user submits the form (createAction), the form is bound (bind($request) method) with the user submitted values and the validation is triggered.

Once the form is bound, it is possible to check its validity using the isValid() method: if the form is valid (returns true), the job is saved to the database ($em->persist($entity)), and the user is redirected to the job preview page; if not, the new.html.twig template is displayed again with the user submitted values and the associated error messages.

The modification of an existing job is quite similar. The only difference between the new and the edit action is that the job object to be modified is passed as the second argument of the createForm method. This object will be used for default widget values in the template.

You can also define default values for the creation form. For this we will pass a pre-modified Job object to the createForm() method to set the type default value to full-time:

    // ...

    public function newAction()
    {
        $entity = new Job();
        $entity->setType('full-time');
        $form = $this->createForm(new JobType(), $entity);

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:new.html.twig', array(
            'entity' => $entity,
            'form'   => $form->createView()
        ));
    }

    // ...

PROTECTING THE JOB FORM WITH A TOKEN

Everything must work fine by now. As of now, the user must enter the token for the job. But the job token must be generated automatically when a new job is created, as we don’t want to rely on the user to provide a unique token. Add the setTokenValue method to the prePersist lifecycleCallbacks for the Job entity:

# ...

  lifecycleCallbacks:
     prePersist: [ setTokenValue, preUpload, setCreatedAtValue, setExpiresAtValue ]
     # ...

Regenerate the doctrine entities to apply this modification:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

Edit the setTokenValue() method of the Job entity to add the logic that generates the token before a new job is saved:

    // ...

    public function setTokenValue()
    {
        if(!$this->getToken()) {
            $this->token = sha1($this->getEmail().rand(11111, 99999));
        }
    }

    // ...

You can now remove the token field from the form:

// ...

    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add('category')
            ->add('type', 'choice', array('choices' => Job::getTypes(), 'expanded' => true))
            ->add('company')
            ->add('file', 'file', array('label' => 'Company logo', 'required' => false))
            ->add('url')
            ->add('position')
            ->add('location')
            ->add('description')
            ->add('how_to_apply', null, array('label' => 'How to apply?'))
            ->add('is_public', null, array('label' => 'Public?'))
            ->add('email')
        ;
    }

// ...

Remove it from the new.html.twig and edit.html.twig templates also:

<!-- ... -->
<tr>
    <th>{{ form_label(form.token) }}</th>
    <td>
        {{ form_errors(form.token) }}
        {{ form_widget(form.token) }}
    </td>
</tr>
<!-- ... -->
<!-- ... -->
<tr>
    <th>{{ form_label(edit_form.token) }}</th>
    <td>
        {{ form_errors(edit_form.token) }}
        {{ form(edit_form.token) }}
    </td>
</tr>
<!-- ... -->

And from the validation.yml file:

# ...
    # ...
    token:
        - NotBlank: ~

If you remember the user stories from day 2, a job can be edited only if the user knows the associated token. Right now, it is pretty easy to edit or delete any job, just by guessing the URL. That’s because the edit URL is like /job/ID/edit, where ID is the primary key of the job.

Let’s change the routes so you can edit or delete a job only if you now the secret token:

# ...

ibw_job_edit:
    pattern:  /{token}/edit
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:edit" }

ibw_job_update:
    pattern:  /{token}/update
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:update" }
    requirements: { _method: post|put }

ibw_job_delete:
    pattern:  /{token}/delete
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:delete" }
    requirements: { _method: post|delete }

Now edit the JobController to use the token instead of the id:

// ...
class JobController extends Controller
{
    // ...

    public function editAction($token)
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findOneByToken($token);

        if (!$entity) {
            throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
        }

        $editForm = $this->createForm(new JobType(), $entity);
        $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($token);

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:edit.html.twig', array(
            'entity'      => $entity,
            'edit_form'   => $editForm->createView(),
            'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
        ));
    }   

    public function updateAction(Request $request, $token)
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findOneByToken($token);

        if (!$entity) {
            throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
        }

        $editForm   = $this->createForm(new JobType(), $entity);
        $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($token);

        $editForm->bind($request);

        if ($editForm->isValid()) {
            $em->persist($entity);
            $em->flush();

            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_edit', array('token' => $token)));
        }

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:edit.html.twig', array(
            'entity'      => $entity,
            'edit_form'   => $editForm->createView(),
            'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
        ));
    }

    public function deleteAction(Request $request, $token)
    {
        $form = $this->createDeleteForm($token);
        $form->bind($request);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
            $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findOneByToken($token);

            if (!$entity) {
                throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
            }

            $em->remove($entity);
            $em->flush();
        }

        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job'));
    }

    /**
     * Creates a form to delete a Job entity by id.
     *
     * @param mixed $id The entity id
     *
     * @return SymfonyComponentFormForm The form
     */
    private function createDeleteForm($token)
    {
        return $this->createFormBuilder(array('token' => $token))
            ->add('token', 'hidden')
            ->getForm()
        ;
    }
}

In the job show template show.html.twig, change the ibw_job_edit route parameter:

<a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', {'token': entity.token}) }}">

Do the same for ibw_job_update route in edit.html.twig job template:

<form action="{{ path('ibw_job_update', {'token': entity.token}) }}" method="post" {{ form_enctype(edit_form) }}>

Now, all routes related to the jobs, except the job_show_user one, embed the token. For instance, the route to edit a job is now of the following pattern:
http://jobeet.local/job/TOKEN/edit

The Preview Page

The preview page is the same as the job page display. The only difference is that the job preview page will be accessed using the job token instead of the job id:

# ...

ibw_job_show:
    pattern:  /{company}/{location}/{id}/{position}
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show" }
    requirements:
        id:  d+

ibw_job_preview:
    pattern:  /{company}/{location}/{token}/{position}
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:preview" }
    requirements:
        token:  w+

# ...

The preview action (here the difference from the show action is that the job is retrieved from the database using the provided token instead of the id):

// ...

    public function previewAction($token)
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findOneByToken($token);

        if (!$entity) {
            throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
        }

        $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($entity->getId());

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show.html.twig', array(
            'entity'      => $entity,
            'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
        ));
    }

// ...

If the user comes in with the tokenized URL, we will add an admin bar at the top. At the beginning of the show.html.twig template, include a template to host the admin bar and remove the edit link at the bottom:

<!-- ... -->

{% block content %}
    {% if app.request.get('token') %}
        {% include 'IbwJobeetBundle:Job:admin.html.twig' with {'job': entity} %}
    {% endif %}

 <!-- ... -->

{% endblock %}

Then, create the admin.html.twig template:

<div id="job_actions">
    <h3>Admin</h3>
    <ul>
        {% if not job.isActivated %}
            <li><a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'token': job.token }) }}">Edit</a></li>
            <li><a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'token': job.token }) }}">Publish</a></li>
        {% endif %}
        <li>
            <form action="{{ path('ibw_job_delete', { 'token': job.token }) }}" method="post">
                {{ form_widget(delete_form) }}
                <button type="submit" onclick="if(!confirm('Are you sure?')) { return false; }">Delete</button>
            </form>
        </li>
        {% if job.isActivated %}
            <li {% if job.expiresSoon %} class="expires_soon" {% endif %}>
                {% if job.isExpired %}
                    Expired
                {% else %}
                    Expires in <strong>{{ job.getDaysBeforeExpires }}</strong> days
                {% endif %}

                {% if job.expiresSoon %}
                    - <a href="">Extend</a> for another 30 days
                {% endif %}
            </li>
        {% else %}
            <li>
                [Bookmark this <a href="{{ url('ibw_job_preview', { 'token': job.token, 'company': job.companyslug, 'location': job.locationslug, 'position': job.positionslug }) }}">URL</a> to manage this job in the future.]
            </li>
        {% endif %}
    </ul>
</div>

There is a lot of code, but most of the code is simple to understand.

To make the template more readable, we have added a bunch of shortcut methods in the Job entity class:

    // ...

    public function isExpired()
    {
        return $this->getDaysBeforeExpires() < 0;
    }

    public function expiresSoon()
    {
        return $this->getDaysBeforeExpires() < 5;    
    }

    public function getDaysBeforeExpires()
    {
        return ceil(($this->getExpiresAt()->format('U') - time()) / 86400);
    }

    // ...

The admin bar displays the different actions depending on the job status:

 

We will now redirect the create and update actions of the JobController to the new preview page:

public function createAction(Request $request)
{
    // ...
    if ($form->isValid()) {
        // ... 
        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_preview', array(
            'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
            'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
            'token' => $entity->getToken(),
            'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
        )));
    }
    // ...
}

public function updateAction(Request $request, $token)
{
    // ...
    if ($editForm->isValid()) {
        // ... 

        return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_preview', array(
            'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
            'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
            'token' => $entity->getToken(), 
            'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
        )));
    }
    // ...
}

As we said before, you can edit a job only if you know the job token and you’re the admin of the site. At the moment, when you access a job page, you will see the Edit link and that’s bad. Let’s remove it from the show.html.twig file:

<div style="padding: 20px 0">
    <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'token': entity.token }) }}">
        Edit
    </a>
</div>

Job Activation and Publication

In the previous section, there is a link to publish the job. The link needs to be changed to point to a new publish action. For this we will create new route:

# ...

ibw_job_publish:
    pattern:  /{token}/publish
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:publish" }
    requirements: { _method: post }

We can now change the link of the Publish link (we will use a form here, like when deleting a job, so we will have a POST request):

<!-- ... -->

{% if not job.isActivated %}
    <li><a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'token': job.token }) }}">Edit</a></li>
    <li>
        <form action="{{ path('ibw_job_publish', { 'token': job.token }) }}" method="post">
            {{ form_widget(publish_form) }}
            <button type="submit">Publish</button>
        </form>
    </li>
{% endif %}

<!-- ... -->

The last step is to create the publish action, the publish form and to edit the preview action to send the publish form to the template:

// ...

public function previewAction($token)
{
    // ...

    $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($entity->getToken());
    $publishForm = $this->createPublishForm($entity->getToken());

    return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show.html.twig', array(
        'entity'      => $entity,
        'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
        'publish_form' => $publishForm->createView(),
    ));
}

public function publishAction(Request $request, $token)
{
    $form = $this->createPublishForm($token);
    $form->bind($request);

    if ($form->isValid()) {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findOneByToken($token);

        if (!$entity) {
            throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
        }

        $entity->publish();
        $em->persist($entity);
        $em->flush();

        $this->get('session')->getFlashBag()->add('notice', 'Your job is now online for 30 days.');
    }

    return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('ibw_job_preview', array(
        'company' => $entity->getCompanySlug(),
        'location' => $entity->getLocationSlug(),
        'token' => $entity->getToken(),
        'position' => $entity->getPositionSlug()
    )));
}

private function createPublishForm($token)
{
    return $this->createFormBuilder(array('token' => $token))
        ->add('token', 'hidden')
        ->getForm()
    ;
}

// ...

The publishAction() method uses a new publish() method that can be defined as follows:

// ...

public function publish()
{
    $this->setIsActivated(true);
}

// ...

You can now test the new publish feature in your browser.

But we still have something to fix. The non-activated jobs must not be accessible, which means that they must not show up on the Jobeet homepage, and must not be accessible by their URL. We need to edit the JobRepository methods to add this requirement:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleRepository;
use DoctrineORMEntityRepository;

class JobRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function getActiveJobs($category_id = null, $max = null, $offset = null)
    {
        $qb = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->where('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->andWhere('j.is_activated = :activated')
            ->setParameter('activated', 1)
            ->orderBy('j.expires_at', 'DESC');

        if($max) {
            $qb->setMaxResults($max);
        }

        if($offset) {
            $qb->setFirstResult($offset);
        }

        if($category_id) {
            $qb->andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
                ->setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
        }

        $query = $qb->getQuery();

        return $query->getResult();
    }

    public function countActiveJobs($category_id = null)
    {
        $qb = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->select('count(j.id)')
            ->where('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->andWhere('j.is_activated = :activated')
            ->setParameter('activated', 1);

        if($category_id) {
            $qb->andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
                ->setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
        }

        $query = $qb->getQuery();

        return $query->getSingleScalarResult();
    }

    public function getActiveJob($id)
    {
        $query = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->where('j.id = :id')
            ->setParameter('id', $id)
            ->andWhere('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->andWhere('j.is_activated = :activated')
            ->setParameter('activated', 1)
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getQuery();

        try {
            $job = $query->getSingleResult();
        } catch (DoctrineOrmNoResultException $e) {
        $job = null;
          }

        return $job;
    }
}

The same for CategoryRepository getWithJobs() method:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleRepository;
use DoctrineORMEntityRepository;

class CategoryRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function getWithJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->getEntityManager()
            ->createQuery('SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c LEFT JOIN c.jobs j WHERE j.expires_at > :date AND j.is_activated = :activated')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->setParameter('activated', 1);

        return $query->getResult();
    }
}

That’s all. You can test it now in your browser. All non-activated jobs have disappeared from the homepage; even if you know their URLs, they are not accessible anymore. They are, however, accessible if one knows the job’s token URL. In that case, the job preview will show up with the admin bar.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 9: The Functional Tests

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.
Functional tests are a great tool to test your application from end to end: from the request made by a browser to the response sent by the server. They test all the layers of an application: the routing, the model, the actions and the templates. They are very similar to what you probably already do manually: each time you add or modify an action, you need to go to the browser and check that everything works as expected by clicking on links and checking elements on the rendered page. In other words, you run a scenario corresponding to the use case you have just implemented.

As the process is manual, it is tedious and error prone. Each time you change something in your code, you must step through all the scenarios to ensure that you did not break something. That’s insane. Functional tests in symfony provide a way to easily describe scenarios. Each scenario can then be played automatically over and over again by simulating the experience a user has in a browser. Like unit tests, they give you the confidence to code in peace.

Functional tests have a very specific workflow:

  • Make a request;
  • Test the response;
  • Click on a link or submit a form;
  • Test the response;
  • Rinse and repeat;

Our First Functional Test

Functional tests are simple PHP files that typically live in the Tests/Controller directory of your bundle. If you want to test the pages handled by your CategoryController class, start by creating a new CategoryControllerTest class that extends a special WebTestCase class:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsController;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class CategoryControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testShow()
    {
        $client = static::createClient();

        $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/category/index');
        $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerCategoryController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
        $this->assertTrue(200 === $client->getResponse()->getStatusCode());
    }
}

To learn more about crawler, read the Symfony documentation here.

Running Functional Tests

As for unit tests, launching functional tests can be done by executing the phpunit command:

phpunit -c app/ src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Controller/CategoryControllerTest

This test will fail because the tested url, /category/index, is not a valid url in Jobeet:

PHPUnit 3.7.22 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from /var/www/jobeet/app/phpunit.xml.dist

F

Time: 2 seconds, Memory: 25.25Mb

There was 1 failure:

1) IbwJobeetBundleTestsControllerCategoryControllerTest::testShow
Failed asserting that false is true.

Writing Functional Tests

Writing functional tests is like playing a scenario in a browser. We already have written all the scenarios we need to test as part of the day 2 stories.

First, let’s test the Jobeet homepage by editing the JobControllerTest class. Replace the code with the following one:

EXPIRED JOBS ARE NOT LISTED

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsController;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testIndex()
    {
        $client = static::createClient();
        $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/');

        $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerJobController::indexAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.jobs td.position:contains("Expired")')->count() == 0);
    }
}

To verify the exclusion of expired jobs from the homepage, we check that the CSS selector .jobs td.position:contains("Expired") does not match anywhere in the response HTML content (remember that in the fixtures, the only expired job we have contains “Expired” in the position).

ONLY N JOBS ARE LISTED FOR A CATEGORY

Add the following code at the end of your testIndex() function. To get the custom parameter defined in app/config/config.yml in our functional test, we will use the kernel:

public function testIndex()
{
    //...
    $kernel = static::createKernel();
    $kernel->boot();
    $max_jobs_on_homepage = $kernel->getContainer()->getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage');
    $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming tr')->count() <= $max_jobs_on_homepage );
}

For this test to work we will need to add the corresponding CSS class to each category in the Job/index.html.twig file (so we can select each category and count the jobs listed) :

<!-- ... -->

    {% for category in categories %}
        <div class="category_{{ category.slug }}">
           <div class="category">
<!-- ... -->

A CATEGORY HAS A LINK TO THE CATEGORY PAGE ONLY IF TOO MANY JOBS

public function testIndex()
{
    //...
    $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_design .more_jobs')->count() == 0);
    $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming .more_jobs')->count() == 1);
}

In these tests, we check that there is no “more jobs” link for the design category (.category_design .more_jobs does not exist), and that there is a “more jobs” link for the programming category (.category_programming .more_jobs does exist).

JOBS ARE SORTED BY DATE

To test if jobs are actually sorted by date, we need to check that the first job listed on the homepage is the one we expect. This can be done by checking that the URL contains the expected primary key. As the primary key can change between runs, we need to get the Doctrine object from the database first.

public function testIndex()
{    
    // ...
    $em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager');

    $query = $em->createQuery('SELECT j from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j LEFT JOIN j.category c WHERE c.slug = :slug AND j.expires_at > :date ORDER BY j.created_at DESC');
    $query->setParameter('slug', 'programming');
    $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
    $query->setMaxResults(1);
    $job = $query->getSingleResult();

    $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming tr')->first()->filter(sprintf('a[href*="/%d/"]', $job->getId()))->count() == 1);
}

Even if the test works in this very moment, we need to refactor the code a bit, as getting the first job of the programming category can be reused elsewhere in our tests. We won’t move the code to the Model layer as the code is test specific. Instead, we will move the code to the getMostRecentProgrammingJob function in our test class:

// ...

    public function getMostRecentProgrammingJob()
    {
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();
        $em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager');

        $query = $em->createQuery('SELECT j from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j LEFT JOIN j.category c WHERE c.slug = :slug AND j.expires_at > :date ORDER BY j.created_at DESC');
        $query->setParameter('slug', 'programming');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);

        return $query->getSingleResult();
    }

// ...

You can now replace the previous test code by the following one:

// ...

$this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming tr')->first()->filter(sprintf('a[href*="/%d/"]', $this->getMostRecentProgrammingJob()->getId()))->count() == 1);

//...

EACH JOB ON THE HOMEPAGE IS CLICKABLE

To test the job link on the homepage, we simulate a click on the “Web Developer” text. As there are many of them on the page, we have explicitly to ask the browser to click on the first one.

Each request parameter is then tested to ensure that the routing has done its job correctly.

public function testIndex() 
{
    // ...

    $job = $this->getMostRecentProgrammingJob();
    $link = $crawler->selectLink('Web Developer')->first()->link();
    $crawler = $client->click($link);
    $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerJobController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
    $this->assertEquals($job->getCompanySlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('company'));
    $this->assertEquals($job->getLocationSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('location'));
    $this->assertEquals($job->getPositionSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('position'));
    $this->assertEquals($job->getId(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('id'));
}

// ...

LEARN BY THE EXAMPLE

In this section, you have all the code needed to test the job and category pages. Read the code carefully as you may learn some new neat tricks:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsController;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function getMostRecentProgrammingJob()
    {
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();
        $em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager');

        $query = $em->createQuery('SELECT j from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j LEFT JOIN j.category c WHERE c.slug = :slug AND j.expires_at > :date ORDER BY j.created_at DESC');
        $query->setParameter('slug', 'programming');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);

        return $query->getSingleResult();
    }

    public function getExpiredJob()
    {
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();
        $em = $kernel->getContainer()->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager');

        $query = $em->createQuery('SELECT j from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at < :date');             
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);

        return $query->getSingleResult();
    }

    public function testIndex()
    {
        // get the custom parameters from app config.yml
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();
        $max_jobs_on_homepage = $kernel->getContainer()->getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage');

        $client = static::createClient();

        $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/');
        $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerJobController::indexAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));

        // expired jobs are not listed
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.jobs td.position:contains("Expired")')->count() == 0);

        // only $max_jobs_on_homepage jobs are listed for a category
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming tr')->count()<= $max_jobs_on_homepage); 
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_design .more_jobs')->count() == 0);
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming .more_jobs')->count() == 1);

        // jobs are sorted by date
        $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.category_programming tr')->first()->filter(sprintf('a[href*="/%d/"]', $this->getMostRecentProgrammingJob()->getId()))->count() == 1);

        // each job on the homepage is clickable and give detailed information
        $job = $this->getMostRecentProgrammingJob();
        $link = $crawler->selectLink('Web Developer')->first()->link();
        $crawler = $client->click($link);
        $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerJobController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
        $this->assertEquals($job->getCompanySlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('company'));
        $this->assertEquals($job->getLocationSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('location'));
        $this->assertEquals($job->getPositionSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('position'));
        $this->assertEquals($job->getId(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('id'));

        // a non-existent job forwards the user to a 404
        $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/job/foo-inc/milano-italy/0/painter');
        $this->assertTrue(404 === $client->getResponse()->getStatusCode());

        // an expired job page forwards the user to a 404
        $crawler = $client->request('GET', sprintf('/job/sensio-labs/paris-france/%d/web-developer', $this->getExpiredJob()->getId()));
        $this->assertTrue(404 === $client->getResponse()->getStatusCode());
    }
}

 

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsController;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class CategoryControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;
    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testShow()
    {
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();

        // get the custom parameters from app/config.yml
        $max_jobs_on_category = $kernel->getContainer()->getParameter('max_jobs_on_category');
        $max_jobs_on_homepage = $kernel->getContainer()->getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage');

        $client = static::createClient();

        $categories = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();

        // categories on homepage are clickable
        foreach($categories as $category) {
            $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/');

            $link = $crawler->selectLink($category->getName())->link();
            $crawler = $client->click($link);

            $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerCategoryController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
            $this->assertEquals($category->getSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('slug'));

            $jobs_no = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->countActiveJobs($category->getId()); 

            // categories with more than $max_jobs_on_homepage jobs also have a "more" link                 
            if($jobs_no > $max_jobs_on_homepage) {
                $crawler = $client->request('GET', '/');
                $link = $crawler->filter(".category_" . $category->getSlug() . " .more_jobs a")->link();
                $crawler = $client->click($link);

                $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerCategoryController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
                $this->assertEquals($category->getSlug(), $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('slug'));
            }

            $pages = ceil($jobs_no/$max_jobs_on_category);

            // only $max_jobs_on_category jobs are listed 
            $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.jobs tr')->count() <= $max_jobs_on_category);
            $this->assertRegExp("/" . $jobs_no . " jobs/", $crawler->filter('.pagination_desc')->text());

            if($pages > 1) {
                $this->assertRegExp("/page 1/" . $pages . "/", $crawler->filter('.pagination_desc')->text());

                for ($i = 2; $i <= $pages; $i++) {
                    $link = $crawler->selectLink($i)->link();
                    $crawler = $client->click($link);

                    $this->assertEquals('IbwJobeetBundleControllerCategoryController::showAction', $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('_controller'));
                    $this->assertEquals($i, $client->getRequest()->attributes->get('page'));
                    $this->assertTrue($crawler->filter('.jobs tr')->count() <= $max_jobs_on_category);
                    if($jobs_no >1) {
                        $this->assertRegExp("/" . $jobs_no . " jobs/", $crawler->filter('.pagination_desc')->text());
                    }
                    $this->assertRegExp("/page " . $i . "/" . $pages . "/", $crawler->filter('.pagination_desc')->text());
                }
            }     
        }
    }
}

That’s all for today! Tomorrow, we will learn all there is to know about forms.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 8: The Unit Tests

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

Tests in Symfony

There are two different kinds of automated tests in Symfony: unit tests and functional tests. Unit tests verify that each method and function is working properly. Each test must be as independent as possible from the others. On the other hand, functional tests verify that the resulting application behaves correctly as a whole.

Unit tests will be covered in this post, whereas the next post will be dedicated to funcional tests.

Symfony2 integrates with an independent library, the PHPUnit, to give you a rich testing framework. To run tests, you will have to install PHPUnit 3.5.11 or later.

If you don’t have PHPUnit installed, use the following to get it:

sudo apt-get install phpunit
sudo pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
sudo pear channel-discover pear.symfony-project.com
sudo pear channel-discover components.ez.no
sudo pear channel-discover pear.symfony.com
sudo pear update-channels
sudo pear upgrade-all
sudo pear install pear.symfony.com/Yaml
sudo pear install --alldeps phpunit/PHPUnit
sudo pear install --force --alldeps phpunit/PHPUnit

Each test – whether it’s a unit test or a functional test – is a PHP class that should live in the Tests/ subdirectory of your bundles. If you follow this rule, then you can run all of your application’s tests with the following command:

phpunit -c app/

The -c option tells PHPUnit to look in the app/ directory for a configuration file. If you’re curious about the PHPUnit options, check out the app/phpunit.xml.dist file.

A unit test is usually a test against a specific PHP class. Let’s start by writing tests for the Jobeet:slugify() method.

Create a new file, JobeetTest.php, in the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils folder. By convention, the Tests/ subdirectory should replicate the directory of your bundle. So, when we are testing a class in our bundle’s Utils/ directory, we put the test in the Tests/Utils/ directory:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsUtils;

use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet;

class JobeetTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function testSlugify()
    {
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify('Sensio'));
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('sensio-labs', Jobeet::slugify('sensio labs'));
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('sensio-labs', Jobeet::slugify('sensio labs'));
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('paris-france', Jobeet::slugify('paris,france'));
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify(' sensio'));
        $this-&gt;assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify('sensio '));
    }
}

To run only this test, you can use the following command:

phpunit -c app/ src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils/JobeetTest

As everything should work fine, you should get the following result:

PHPUnit 3.7.22 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from /var/www/jobeet/app/phpunit.xml.dist

.

Time: 0 seconds, Memory: 8.00Mb

OK (1 test, 6 assertions)

For a full list of assertions, you can check the PHPUnit documentation.

Adding Tests for new Features

The slug for an empty string is an empty string. You can test it, it will work. But an empty string in a URL is not that a great idea. Let’s change the slugify() method so that it returns the “n-a” string in case of an empty string.

You can write the test first, then update the method, or the other way around. It is really a matter of taste, but writing the test first gives you the confidence that your code actually implements what you planned:

// ...

$this-&gt;assertEquals('n-a', Jobeet::slugify(''));

// ...

Now, if we run the test again, we will have a failure:

PHPUnit 3.7.22 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from /var/www/jobeet/app/phpunit.xml.dist

F

Time: 0 seconds, Memory: 8.25Mb

There was 1 failure:

1) IbwJobeetBundleTestsUtilsJobeetTest::testSlugify
Failed asserting that two strings are equal.
--- Expected
+++ Actual
@@ @@
-'n-a'
+''

/var/www/jobeet/src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils/JobeetTest.php:13

FAILURES!
Tests: 1, Assertions: 5, Failures: 1.

Now, edit the Jobeet::slugify method and add the following condition at the beginning:

// ...

    static public function slugify($text)
    {
        if (empty($text)) {
            return 'n-a';
        }

        // ...
    }

The test must now pass as expected, and you can enjoy the green bar.

Adding Tests because of a Bug

Let’s say that time has passed and one of your users reports a weird bug: some job links point to a 404 error page. After some investigation, you find that for some reason, these jobs have an empty company, position, or location slug.

How is it possible?

You look through the records in the database and the columns are definitely not empty. You think about it for a while, and bingo, you find the cause. When a string only contains non-ASCII characters, the slugify() method converts it to an empty string. So happy to have found the cause, you open the Jobeet class and fix the problem right away. That’s a bad idea. First, let’s add a test:

$this->assertEquals('n-a', Jobeet::slugify(' - '));

After checking that the test does not pass, edit the Jobeet class and move the empty string check to the end of the method:

static public function slugify($text)
{
    // ...

    if (empty($text))
    {
        return 'n-a';
    }

    return $text;
}

The new test now passes, as do all the other ones. The slugify() had a bug despite our 100% coverage.

You cannot think about all edge cases when writing tests, and that’s fine. But when you discover one, you need to write a test for it before fixing your code. It also means that your code will get better over time, which is always a good thing.

Towards a better slugify Method

You probably know that symfony has been created by French people, so let’s add a test with a French word that contains an “accent”:

$this->assertEquals('developpeur-web', Jobeet::slugify('Développeur Web'));

The test must fail. Instead of replacing é by e, the slugify() method has replaced it by a dash (-). That’s a tough problem, called transliteration. Hopefully, if you have iconv Library installed, it will do the job for us. Replace the code of the slugify method with the following:

The test must fail. Instead of replacing é by e, the slugify() method has replaced it by a dash (-). That’s a tough problem, called transliteration. Hopefully, if you have iconv Library installed, it will do the job for us. Replace the code of the slugify method with the following:

static public function slugify($text)
{
    // replace non letter or digits by -
    $text = preg_replace('#[^\pLd]+#u', '-', $text);

    // trim
    $text = trim($text, '-');

    // transliterate
    if (function_exists('iconv'))
    {
        $text = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//TRANSLIT', $text);
    }

    // lowercase
    $text = strtolower($text);

    // remove unwanted characters
    $text = preg_replace('#[^-w]+#', '', $text);

    if (empty($text))
    {
        return 'n-a';
    }

    return $text;
}

Remember to save all your PHP files with the UTF-8 encoding, as this is the default Symfony encoding, and the one used by iconv to do the transliteration.

Also change the test file to run the test only if iconv is available:

if (function_exists('iconv')) {
    $this-&gt;assertEquals('developpeur-web', Jobeet::slugify('Développeur Web'));
}

Code Coverage

When you write tests, it is easy to forget a portion of the code. If you add a new feature or you just want to verify your code coverage statistics, all you need to do is to check the code coverage by using the --coverage-html option:

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app/
Check the code coverage by opening the generated http://jobeet.local/cov/index.html page in a browser.

The code coverage only works if you have XDebug enabled and all dependencies installed.

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug

Your cov/index.html should look like this:

day 8 - code coverage1

Keep in mind that when this indicates that your code is fully unit tested, it just means that each line has been executed, not that all the edge cases have been tested.

Doctrine Unit Tests

Unit testing a Doctrine model class is a bit more complex as it requires a database connection. You already have the one you use for your development, but it is a good habit to create a dedicated database for tests.

At the beginning of this tutorial, we introduced the environments as a way to vary an application’s settings. By default, all symfony tests are run in the test environment, so let’s configure a different database for the test environment:

Go to your app/config directory and create a copy of parameters.yml file, called parameters_test.yml. Open parameters_test.yml and change the name of your database to jobeet_test. For this to be imported, we have to add it in the config_test.yml file :

imports:
    - { resource: config_dev.yml }
    - { resource: parameters_test.yml }
// ...

Testing the Job Entity

First, we need to create the JobTest.php file in the Tests/Entity folder.

The setUp function will manipulate your database each time you will run the test. At first, it will drop your current database, then it will re-create it and load data from fixtures in it. This will help you have the same initial data in the database you created for the test environment before running the tests.

namespace IbwJobeetBundleEntity;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet as Jobeet;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testGetCompanySlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getCompanySlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getCompany()));
    }

    public function testGetPositionSlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getPositionSlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getPosition()));
    }

    public function testGetLocationSlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getLocationSlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getLocation()));
    }

    public function testSetExpiresAtValue()
    {
        $job = new Job();
        $job->setExpiresAtValue();

        $this->assertEquals(time() + 86400 * 30, $job->getExpiresAt()->format('U'));
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

Testing the Repository Classes

Now, let’s write some tests for the JobRepository class, to see if the functions we created in the previous days are returning the right values:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsRepository;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobRepositoryTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testCountActiveJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c');
        $categories = $query->getResult();

        foreach($categories as $category) {
            $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT COUNT(j.id) FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.category = :category AND j.expires_at > :date');
            $query->setParameter('category', $category->getId());
            $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
            $jobs_db = $query->getSingleScalarResult();

            $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->countActiveJobs($category->getId());
            // This test will verify if the value returned by the countActiveJobs() function
            // coincides with the number of active jobs for a given category from the database
            $this->assertEquals($jobs_rep, $jobs_db);
        }
    }

    public function testGetActiveJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c from IbwJobeetBundle:Category c');
        $categories = $query->getResult();

        foreach ($categories as $category) {
            $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT COUNT(j.id) from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at > :date AND j.category = :category');
            $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
            $query->setParameter('category', $category->getId());
            $jobs_db = $query->getSingleScalarResult();

            $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), null, null);
            // This test tells if the number of active jobs for a given category from
            // the database is the same as the value returned by the function
            $this->assertEquals($jobs_db, count($jobs_rep));
        }
    }

    public function testGetActiveJob()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at > :date');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);
        $job_db = $query->getSingleResult();

        $job_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJob($job_db->getId());
        // If the job is active, the getActiveJob() method should return a non-null value
        $this->assertNotNull($job_rep);

        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at < :date');         $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);
        $job_expired = $query->getSingleResult();

        $job_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJob($job_expired->getId());
        // If the job is expired, the getActiveJob() method should return a null value
        $this->assertNull($job_rep);
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

We will do the same thing for CategoryRepository class:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsRepository;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class CategoryRepositoryTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testGetWithJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c LEFT JOIN c.jobs j WHERE j.expires_at > :date');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $categories_db = $query->getResult();

        $categories_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();
        // This test verifies if the number of categories having active jobs, returned
        // by the getWithJobs() function equals the number of categories having active jobs from database
        $this->assertEquals(count($categories_rep), count($categories_db));
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

After you finish writing the tests, run them with the following command, in order to generate the code coverage percent for the whole functions :

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Repository/

Now, if you go to http://jobeet.local/cov/Repository.html you will see that the code coverage for Repository Tests is not 100% complete.

Day 8 - coverage not complete

Let’s add some tests for the JobRepository to achieve 100% code coverage. At the moment, in our database, we have two job categories having 0 active jobs and one job category having just one active job. That why, when we will test the $max and $offset parameters, we will run the following tests just on the categories with at least 3 active jobs. In order to do that, add this inside your foreach statement, from your testGetActiveJobs() function:

// ...
foreach ($categories as $category) {
    // ...

    // If there are at least 3 active jobs in the selected category, we will
    // test the getActiveJobs() method using the limit and offset parameters too
    // to get 100% code coverage
    if($jobs_db > 2 ) {
        $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), 2);
        // This test tells if the number of returned active jobs is the one $max parameter requires
        $this->assertEquals(2, count($jobs_rep));

        $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), 2, 1);
        // We set the limit to 2 results, starting from the second job and test if the result is as expected
        $this->assertEquals(2, count($jobs_rep));
    }
}
// ...

Run the code coverage command again :

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Repository/

This time, if you check your code coverage, you will see that it 100% complete.

Day 8 - coverage complete

That’s all for today! See you tomorrow, when we will talk about functional tests.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 7: Playing With the Category Page

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.
Today we will make the Category page like it is described in the second day’s requirements:

“The user sees a list of all the jobs from the category sorted by date and paginated with 20 jobs per page“

The Category Route

First, we need to add a route to define a pretty URL for the category page. Add it at the beginning of the routing file:

# ...
IbwJobeetBundle_category:
    pattern:  /category/{slug}
    defaults: { _controller: IbwJobeetBundle:Category:show }

To get the slug of a category we need to add the getSlug() method to our category class:

use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet as Jobeet;

class Category
{
    // ...

    public function getSlug()
    {
        return Jobeet::slugify($this->getName());
    }
}

The Category Link

Now, edit the index.html.twig template of the job controller to add the link to the category page:

<!-- some HTML code -->

                    <h1><a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug }) }}">{{ category.name }}</a></h1>

<!-- some HTML code -->

                </table>

                {% if category.morejobs %}
                    <div class="more_jobs">
                        and <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug }) }}">{{ category.morejobs }}</a>
                        more...
                    </div>
                {% endif %}
            </div>
        {% endfor %}
    </div>
{% endblock %}

In the template above we used category.morejobs, so let’s define it:

class Category
{
    // ...

    private $more_jobs;

    // ...

    public function setMoreJobs($jobs)
    {
        $this-&gt;more_jobs = $jobs &gt;=  0 ? $jobs : 0;
    }

    public function getMoreJobs()
    {
        return $this-&gt;more_jobs;
    }
}

The more_jobs property will hold the number of active jobs for the category minus the number of jobs listed on the homepage. Now, in JobController, we need to set the more_jobs value for each category:

public function indexAction()
{
    $em = $this-&gt;getDoctrine()-&gt;getManager();

    $categories = $em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')-&gt;getWithJobs();

    foreach($categories as $category)
    {
        $category-&gt;setActiveJobs($em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')-&gt;getActiveJobs($category-&gt;getId(), $this-&gt;container-&gt;getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage')));
        $category-&gt;setMoreJobs($em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')-&gt;countActiveJobs($category-&gt;getId()) - $this-&gt;container-&gt;getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage'));
    }

    return $this-&gt;render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
        'categories' =&gt; $categories
    ));
}

The countActiveJobs function has to be added to the JobRepository:

// ...

public function countActiveJobs($category_id = null)
{
    $qb = $this-&gt;createQueryBuilder('j')
        -&gt;select('count(j.id)')
        -&gt;where('j.expires_at &gt; :date')
        -&gt;setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));

    if($category_id)
    {
        $qb-&gt;andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
        -&gt;setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
    }

    $query = $qb-&gt;getQuery();

    return $query-&gt;getSingleScalarResult();
}

// ...

Now you should see the result in your browser:

Day-7 - category link

Category Controller Creation

It’s now time to create the Category controller. Create a new CategoryController.php file in your Controller directory:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleController;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleControllerController;
use IbwJobeetBundleEntityCategory;

/**
* Category controller
*
*/
class CategoryController extends Controller
{

}

We could use the doctrine:generate:crud command like we did for the job controller, but we won’t need 90% of the generated code, so we can just create a new controller from scratch.

Update the Database

We need to add a slug column for the category table and lifecycle callbacks for setting this column value:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityCategory:
    type: entity
    repositoryClass: IbwJobeetBundleRepositoryCategoryRepository
    table: category
    id:
        id:
            type: integer
            generator: { strategy: AUTO }
    fields:
        name:
            type: string
            length: 255
            unique: true
        slug:
            type: string
            length: 255
            unique: true
    oneToMany:
        jobs:
            targetEntity: Job
            mappedBy: category
    manyToMany:
        affiliates:
            targetEntity: Affiliate
            mappedBy: categories
    lifecycleCallbacks:
        prePersist: [ setSlugValue ]
        preUpdate: [ setSlugValue ]

Remove from the Category entity (src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Entity/Category.php) the getSlug method we created earlier and run the doctrine command to update the Category entity class:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities

Now you should have the following added to Category.php:

// ...    
    /**
     * @var string
     */
    private $slug;

    /**
     * Set slug
     *
     * @param string $slug
     * @return Category
     */
    public function setSlug($slug)
    {
        $this-&gt;slug = $slug;

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Get slug
     *
     * @return string 
     */
    public function getSlug()
    {
        return $this-&gt;slug;
    }

Change the setSlugValue() function:

// ...

class Category
{
    // ...

    public function setSlugValue()
    {
        $this-&gt;slug = Jobeet::slugify($this-&gt;getName());
    }
}

Now we have to drop the database and create it again with the new Category column and load the fixtures:

php app/console doctrine:database:drop --force
php app/console doctrine:database:create 
php app/console doctrine:schema:update --force
php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load

Category Page

We have now everything in place to create the showAction() method. Add the following code to the CategoryController.php file:

// ...

public function showAction($slug)
{
    $em = $this-&gt;getDoctrine()-&gt;getManager();

    $category = $em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')-&gt;findOneBySlug($slug);

    if (!$category) {
        throw $this-&gt;createNotFoundException('Unable to find Category entity.');
    }

    $category-&gt;setActiveJobs($em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')-&gt;getActiveJobs($category-&gt;getId()));

    return $this-&gt;render('IbwJobeetBundle:Category:show.html.twig', array(
        'category' =&gt; $category,
    ));
}

// ...

The last step is to create the show.html.twig template:

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block title %}
    Jobs in the {{ category.name }} category
{% endblock %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/jobs.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <div class="category">
        <div class="feed">
            <a href="">Feed</a>
        </div>
        <h1>{{ category.name }}</h1>
    </div>

    <table class="jobs">
        {% for entity in category.activejobs %}
            <tr class="{{ cycle(['even', 'odd'], loop.index) }}">
                <td class="location">{{ entity.location }}</td>
                <td class="position">
                    <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id, 'company': entity.companyslug, 'location': entity.locationslug, 'position': entity.positionslug }) }}">
                        {{ entity.position }}
                    </a>
                </td>
                <td class="company">{{ entity.company }}</td>
            </tr>
        {% endfor %}
    </table>
{% endblock %}

Including Other Twig Templates

Notice that we have copied and pasted the tag that create a list of jobs from the job index.html.twig template. That’s bad. When you need to reuse some portion of a template, you need to create a new twig template with that code and include it where you need. Create the list.html.twig file:

<table class="jobs">
    {% for entity in jobs %}
        <tr class="{{ cycle(['even', 'odd'], loop.index) }}">
            <td class="location">{{ entity.location }}</td>
            <td class="position">
                <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id, 'company': entity.companyslug, 'location': entity.locationslug, 'position': entity.positionslug }) }}">
                    {{ entity.position }}
                </a>
            </td>
            <td class="company">{{ entity.company }}</td>
        </tr>
    {% endfor %}
</table>

You can include a template by using the include function. Replace the HTML <table> code from both templates with the mentioned function:

{{ include ('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:list.html.twig', {'jobs': category.activejobs}) }}
{{ include ('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:list.html.twig', {'jobs': category.activejobs}) }}

List Pagination

At the moment of writing this, Symfony2 doesn’t provide any good pagination tools out of the box so to solve this problem we will use the old classic method. First, let’s add a page parameter to the IbwJobeetBundle_category route. The page parameter will have a default value of 1, so it will not be required:

IbwJobeetBundle_category:
    pattern: /category/{slug}/{page}
    defaults: { _controller: IbwJobeetBundle:Category:show, page: 1 }

# ...

Clear the cache after modifying the routing file:

php app/console cache:clear --env=dev
php app/console cache:clear --env=prod

The number of jobs on each page will be defined as a custom parameter in the app/config/config.yml file:

# ...

parameters:
    max_jobs_on_homepage: 10
    max_jobs_on_category: 20

Change the JobRepository getActiveJobs method to include an $offset parameter to be used by doctrine when retrieving jobs:

// ...

public function getActiveJobs($category_id = null, $max = null, $offset = null)
{
    $qb = $this-&gt;createQueryBuilder('j')
        -&gt;where('j.expires_at &gt; :date')
        -&gt;setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
        -&gt;orderBy('j.expires_at', 'DESC');

    if($max)
    {
        $qb-&gt;setMaxResults($max);
    }

    if($offset)
    {
        $qb-&gt;setFirstResult($offset);
    }

    if($category_id)
    {
        $qb-&gt;andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
           -&gt;setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
    }

    $query = $qb-&gt;getQuery();

    return $query-&gt;getResult();
}

//

Change the CategoryController showAction to the following:

public function showAction($slug, $page)
{
    $em = $this-&gt;getDoctrine()-&gt;getManager();

    $category = $em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')-&gt;findOneBySlug($slug);

    if (!$category) {
        throw $this-&gt;createNotFoundException('Unable to find Category entity.');
    }

    $total_jobs = $em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')-&gt;countActiveJobs($category-&gt;getId());
    $jobs_per_page = $this-&gt;container-&gt;getParameter('max_jobs_on_category');
    $last_page = ceil($total_jobs / $jobs_per_page);
    $previous_page = $page &gt; 1 ? $page - 1 : 1;
    $next_page = $page &lt; $last_page ? $page + 1 : $last_page;
    $category-&gt;setActiveJobs($em-&gt;getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')-&gt;getActiveJobs($category-&gt;getId(), $jobs_per_page, ($page - 1) * $jobs_per_page));

    return $this-&gt;render('IbwJobeetBundle:Category:show.html.twig', array(
        'category' =&gt; $category,
        'last_page' =&gt; $last_page,
        'previous_page' =&gt; $previous_page,
        'current_page' =&gt; $page,
        'next_page' =&gt; $next_page,
        'total_jobs' =&gt; $total_jobs
    ));
}

Finally, let’s update the template

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block title %}
    Jobs in the {{ category.name }} category
{% endblock %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/jobs.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <div class="category">
        <div class="feed">
            <a href="">Feed
            </a>
        </div>
        <h1>{{ category.name }}</h1>
    </div>

    {{ include ('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:list.html.twig', {'jobs': category.activejobs}) }}

    {% if last_page > 1 %}
        <div class="pagination">
            <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug, 'page': 1 }) }}">
                <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/first.png') }}" alt="First page" title="First page" />
            </a>

            <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug, 'page': previous_page }) }}">
                <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/previous.png') }}" alt="Previous page" title="Previous page" />
            </a>

            {% for page in 1..last_page %}
                {% if page == current_page %}
                    {{ page }}
                {% else %}
                    <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug, 'page': page }) }}">{{ page }}</a>
                {% endif %}
            {% endfor %}

            <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug, 'page': next_page }) }}">
                <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/next.png') }}" alt="Next page" title="Next page" />
            </a>

            <a href="{{ path('IbwJobeetBundle_category', { 'slug': category.slug, 'page': last_page }) }}">
                <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/last.png') }}" alt="Last page" title="Last page" />
            </a>
        </div>
    {% endif %}

    <div class="pagination_desc">
        <strong>{{ total_jobs }}</strong> jobs in this category

        {% if last_page > 1 %}
            - page <strong>{{ current_page }}/{{ last_page }}</strong>
        {% endif %}
    </div>
{% endblock %}

The result:

Day 7 - pagination
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 6: More with the Model

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

The Doctrine Query Object

From the second day’s requirements: “On the homepage, the user sees the latest active jobs”. But as of now, all jobs are displayed, whether they are active or not:

// ...

class JobController extends Controller
{
    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $entities = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findAll();

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'entities' => $entities
        ));

 // ...
}

An active job is one that was posted less than 30 days ago. The $entities = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle')->findAll() method will make a request to the database to get all the jobs. We are not specifying any condition, which means that all the records are retrieved from the database.

Let’s change it to only select active jobs:

public function indexAction()
{
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

    $query = $em->createQuery(
        'SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.created_at > :date'
    )->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time() - 86400 * 30));
    $entities = $query->getResult();

    return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
        'entities' => $entities
    ));
}

Debugging Doctrine generated SQL

Sometimes, it is of great help to see the SQL generated by Doctrine; for instance, to debug a query that does not work as expected. In the dev environment, thanks to the Symfony Web Debug Toolbar, all the information you need is available within the comfort of your browser (http://jobeet.local/app_dev.php):

Day 6 - web debug toolbar

Object Serialization

Even if the code above works, it is far from perfect as it does not take into account some requirements from Day 2: “A user can come back to re-activate or extend the validity of the job for an extra 30 days..”.

But as the above code only relies on the created_at value, and because this column stores the creation date, we cannot satisfy the above requirement.

If you remember the database schema we have described during Day 3, we also have defined an expires_at column. Currently, if this value is not set in fixture file, it remains always empty. But when a job is created, it can be automatically set to 30 days after the current date.

When you need to do something automatically before a Doctrine object is serialized to the database, you can add a new action to the lifecycle callbacks in the file that maps objects to the database, like we did earlier for the created_at column:

# ...
    # ...
    lifecycleCallbacks:
        prePersist: [ setCreatedAtValue, setExpiresAtValue ]
        preUpdate: [ setUpdatedAtValue ]

Now, we have to rebuild the entities classes so Doctrine will add the new function:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

Open the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Entity/Job.php file and edit the new added function:

// ...

class Job
{
    // ... 

    public function setExpiresAtValue()
    {
        if(!$this->getExpiresAt()) {
            $now = $this->getCreatedAt() ? $this->getCreatedAt()->format('U') : time();
            $this->expires_at = new DateTime(date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $now + 86400 * 30));
        }
    }
}

Now, let’s change the action to use the expires_at column instead of the created_at one to select the active jobs:

// ...

    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $query = $em->createQuery(
            'SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at > :date'
    )->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $entities = $query->getResult();

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'entities' => $entities
        ));
    }

// ...

More with Fixtures

Refreshing the Jobeet homepage in your browser won’t change anything, as the jobs in the database have been posted just a few days ago. Let’s change the fixtures to add a job that is already expired:

// ...

    public function load(ObjectManager $em)
    {
        $job_expired = new Job();
        $job_expired->setCategory($em->merge($this->getReference('category-programming')));
        $job_expired->setType('full-time');
        $job_expired->setCompany('Sensio Labs');
        $job_expired->setLogo('sensio-labs.gif');
        $job_expired->setUrl('http://www.sensiolabs.com/');
        $job_expired->setPosition('Web Developer Expired');
        $job_expired->setLocation('Paris, France');
        $job_expired->setDescription('Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.');
        $job_expired->setHowToApply('Send your resume to lorem.ipsum [at] dolor.sit');
        $job_expired->setIsPublic(true);
        $job_expired->setIsActivated(true);
        $job_expired->setToken('job_expired');
        $job_expired->setEmail('job@example.com');
        $job_expired->setCreatedAt(new DateTime('2005-12-01'));

        // ...

        $em->persist($job_expired);
        // ...
    }

// ...

Reload the fixtures and refresh your browser to ensure that the old job does not show up:

php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load

Refactoring

Although the code we have written works fine, it’s not quite right yet. Can you spot the problem?

The Doctrine query code does not belong to the action (the Controller layer), it belongs to the Model layer. In the MVC model, the Model defines all the business logic, and the Controller only calls the Model to retrieve data from it. As the code returns a collection of jobs, let’s move the code to the model. For that we will need to create a custom repository class for Job entity and to add the query to that class.

Open /src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/config/doctrine/Job.orm.yml and add the following to it:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    type: entity
    repositoryClass: IbwJobeetBundleRepositoryJobRepository
    # ...

Doctrine can generate the repository class for you by running the generate:entities command used earlier:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

Next, add a new method – getActiveJobs() – to the newly generated repository class. This method will query for all of the active Job entities sorted by the expires_at column (and filtered by category, if it receives the $category_id parameter).

namespace IbwJobeetBundleRepository;

use DoctrineORMEntityRepository;

/**
 * JobRepository
 *
 * This class was generated by the Doctrine ORM. Add your own custom
 * repository methods below.
 */
class JobRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function getActiveJobs($category_id = null)
    {
        $qb = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->where('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->orderBy('j.expires_at', 'DESC');

        if($category_id)
        {
            $qb->andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
                ->setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
        }

        $query = $qb->getQuery();

        return $query->getResult();
    }
}

Now the action code can use this new method to retrieve the active jobs.

// ...

    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $entities = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs();

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'entities' => $entities
        ));
    }

// ...

This refactoring has several benefits over the previous code:

  • The logic to get the active jobs is now in the Model, where it belongs
  • The code in the controller is thinner and much more readable
  • The getActiveJobs() method is re-usable (for instance in another action)
  • The model code is now unit testable

Categories on the Homepage

According to the second day’s requirements we need to have jobs sorted by categories. Until now, we have not taken the job category into account. From the requirements, the homepage must display jobs by category. First, we need to get all categories with at least one active job.

Create a repository class for the Category entity like we did for Job:

IbwJobeetBundleEntityCategory:
    type: entity
    repositoryClass: IbwJobeetBundleRepositoryCategoryRepository
    #...

Generate the repository class:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

Open the CategoryRepository class and add a getWithJobs() method:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleRepository;

use DoctrineORMEntityRepository;

/**
 * CategoryRepository
 *
 * This class was generated by the Doctrine ORM. Add your own custom
 * repository methods below.
 */
class CategoryRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function getWithJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->getEntityManager()->createQuery(
            'SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c LEFT JOIN c.jobs j WHERE j.expires_at > :date'
        )->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));

        return $query->getResult();
    }   
}

Change the index action accordingly:

// ...

    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $categories = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();

        foreach($categories as $category) {
            $category->setActiveJobs($em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId()));
        }

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'categories' => $categories
        ));
    }

// ...

For this to work, we have to add a new property to our Category class, the active_jobs:

class Category
{
    // ...

    private $active_jobs;

    // ...

    public function setActiveJobs($jobs)
    {
        $this->active_jobs = $jobs;
    }

    public function getActiveJobs()
    {
        return $this->active_jobs;
    }
}

In the template, we need to iterate through all categories and display the active jobs:

<!-- ... -->
{% block content %}
    <div id="jobs">
        {% for category in categories %}
            <div>
                <div class="category">
                    <div class="feed">
                        <a href="">Feed</a>
                    </div>
                    <h1>{{ category.name }}</h1>
                </div>
                <table class="jobs">
                    {% for entity in category.activejobs %}
                        <tr class="{{ cycle(['even', 'odd'], loop.index) }}">
                            <td class="location">{{ entity.location }}</td>
                            <td class="position">
                                <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id, 'company': entity.companyslug, 'location': entity.locationslug, 'position': entity.positionslug }) }}">
                                    {{ entity.position }}
                                </a>
                            </td>
                             <td class="company">{{ entity.company }}</td>
                        </tr>
                    {% endfor %}
                </table>
            </div>
        {% endfor %}
    </div>
{% endblock %}

Limit the results

There is still one requirement to implement for the homepage job list: we have to limit the job list to 10 items. That’s simple enough to add the $max parameter to the JobRepository::getActiveJobs() method:

    public function getActiveJobs($category_id = null, $max = null)
    {
        $qb = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->where('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->orderBy('j.expires_at', 'DESC');

        if($max) {
            $qb->setMaxResults($max);
        }

        if($category_id) {
            $qb->andWhere('j.category = :category_id')
                ->setParameter('category_id', $category_id);
        }

        $query = $qb->getQuery();

        return $query->getResult();
    }

Change the call to getActiveJobs() to include the $max parameter:

// ...

    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $categories = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();

        foreach($categories as $category)
        {
            $category->setActiveJobs($em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), 10));
        }

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'categories' => $categories
        ));
    }

// ...

Custom Configuration

In the JobController, indexAction method, we have hardcoded the number of max jobs returned for a category. It would have been better to make the 10 limit configurable. In Symfony, you can define custom parameters for your application in the app/config/config.yml file, under the parameters key (if the parameters key doesn’t exist, create it):

# ...

parameters:
    max_jobs_on_homepage: 10

This can now be accessed from a controller:

// ...

    public function indexAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

        $categories = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();

        foreach($categories as $category) {
            $category->setActiveJobs($em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), $this->container->getParameter('max_jobs_on_homepage')));
        }

        return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
            'categories' => $categories
        ));
    }

// ...

Dinamic Fixtures

For now, you won’t see any difference because we have a very small amount of jobs in our database. We need to add a bunch of jobs to the fixture. So, you can copy and paste an existing job ten or twenty times by hand… but there’s a better way. Duplication is bad, even in fixture files:

// ...

public function load(ObjectManager $em)
{
    // ...

    for($i = 100; $i &lt;= 130; $i++)
    {
        $job = new Job();
        $job-&gt;setCategory($em-&gt;merge($this-&gt;getReference('category-programming')));
        $job-&gt;setType('full-time');
        $job-&gt;setCompany('Company '.$i);
        $job-&gt;setPosition('Web Developer');
        $job-&gt;setLocation('Paris, France');
        $job-&gt;setDescription('Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.');
        $job-&gt;setHowToApply('Send your resume to lorem.ipsum [at] dolor.sit');
        $job-&gt;setIsPublic(true);
        $job-&gt;setIsActivated(true);
        $job-&gt;setToken('job_'.$i);
        $job-&gt;setEmail('job@example.com');

        $em-&gt;persist($job);
    }

    // ... 
    $em-&gt;flush();
}

// ...

You can now reload the fixtures with the doctrine:fixtures:load task and see if only 10 jobs are displayed on the homepage for the Programming category:

Day 6 - limited no of jobs

Secure the Job Page

When a job expires, even if you know the URL, it must not be possible to access it anymore. Try the URL for the expired job (replace the id with the actual id in your database – SELECT id, token FROM job WHERE expires_at < NOW()):

/app_dev.php/job/sensio-labs/paris-france/ID/web-developer-expired

Instead of displaying the job, we need to forward the user to a 404 page. For this we will create a new function in the JobRepository:

// ...

    public function getActiveJob($id)
    {
        $query = $this->createQueryBuilder('j')
            ->where('j.id = :id')
            ->setParameter('id', $id)
            ->andWhere('j.expires_at > :date')
            ->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()))
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getQuery();

        try {
            $job = $query->getSingleResult();
        } catch (DoctrineOrmNoResultException $e) {
            $job = null;
        }

        return $job;
    }

The getSingleResult() method throws a DoctrineORMNoResultException exception if no results are returned and a DoctrineORMNonUniqueResultException if more than one result is returned. If you use this method, you may need to wrap it in a try-catch blockand ensure that only one result is returned.

Now change the showAction() from the JobController to use the new repository method:

// ...

$entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJob($id);

// ...

Now, if you try to get an expired job, you will be forwarded to a 404 page:

Day 6 - no job found

That’s all for today! We will see you again tomorrow, when we’ll be playing with the category page.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 5: The Routing

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

URLs

If you click on a job on the Jobeet homepage, the URL looks like this: /job/1/show. If you have already developed PHP websites, you are probably more accustomed to URLs like /job.php?id=1. How does Symfony make it work? How does Symfony determine the action to call based on this URL? Why is the id of the job retrieved with the $id parameter in the action? Here, we will answer all these questions.

You have already seen the following code in the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/views/Job/index.html.twig template:

{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id }) }}

This uses the path template helper function to generate the url for the job which has the id 1. The ibw_job_show is the name of the route used, defined in the configuration as you will see below.

Routing Configuration

In Symfony2, routing configuration is usually done in the app/config/routing.yml. This imports specific bundle routing configuration. In our case, the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml file is imported:

ibw_jobeet:
    resource: "@IbwJobeetBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml"
    prefix:   /

Now, if you look in the JobeetBundle routing.yml you will see that it imports another routing file, the one for the Job controller and defines a route called ibw_jobeet_homepage for the /hello/{name} URL pattern:

IbwJobeetBundle_job:
    resource: "@IbwJobeetBundle/Resources/config/routing/job.yml"
    prefix: /job

ibw_jobeet_homepage:
    pattern:  /hello/{name}
    defaults: { _controller: IbwJobeetBundle:Default:index }
ibw_job:
    pattern:  /
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index" }

ibw_job_show:
    pattern:  /{id}/show
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show" }

ibw_job_new:
    pattern:  /new
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:new" }

ibw_job_create:
    pattern:  /create
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:create" }
    requirements: { _method: post }

ibw_job_edit:
    pattern:  /{id}/edit
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:edit" }

ibw_job_update:
    pattern:  /{id}/update
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:update" }
    requirements: { _method: post|put }

ibw_job_delete:
    pattern:  /{id}/delete
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:delete" }
    requirements: { _method: post|delete }

Let’s have a closer look to the ibw_job_show route. The pattern defined by the ibw_job_show route acts like /*/show where the wildcard is given the name id. For the URL /1/show, the id variable gets a value of 1, which is available for you to use in your controller. The _controller parameter is a special key that tells Symfony which controller/action should be executed when a URL matches this route, in our case it should execute the showAction from the JobController in the IbwJobeetBundle.

The route parameters (e.g. {id}) are especially important because each is made available as an argument to the controller method.

Routing Configuration in Dev Environment

The dev environment loads the app/config/routing_dev.yml file that contains the routes used by the Web Debug Toolbar (you already deleted the routes for the AcmeDemoBundle from /app/config/routing_dev.php – see Day 1, How to remove the AcmeDemoBundle). This file loads, at the end, the main routing.yml configuration file.

Route Customizations

For now, when you request the / URL in a browser, you will get a 404 Not Found error. That’s because this URL does not match any routes defined. We have a ibw_jobeet_homepage route that matches the /hello/jobeet URL and sends us to the DefaultController, index action. Let’s change it to match the / URL and to call the index action from the JobController. To make the change, modify it to the following:

# ...
ibw_jobeet_homepage:
    pattern:  /
    defaults: { _controller: IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index }

Now, if you clear the cache and go to http://jobeet.local from your browser, you will see the Job homepage. We can now change the link of the Jobeet logo in the layout to use the ibw_jobeet_homepage route:

<!-- ... -->    
    <h1><a href="{{ path('ibw_jobeet_homepage') }}">
        <img alt="Jobeet Job Board" src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/logo.jpg') }}" />
    </a></h1>
<!-- ... -->

For something a bit more involved, let’s change the job page URL to something more meaningful:

/job/sensio-labs/paris-france/1/web-developer

Without knowing anything about Jobeet, and without looking at the page, you can understand from the URL that Sensio Labs is looking for a Web developer to work in Paris, France.

The following pattern matches such a URL:

/job/{company}/{location}/{id}/{position}

Edit the ibw_job_show route from the job.yml file:

# ...

ibw_job_show:
    pattern:  /{company}/{location}/{id}/{position}
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show" }

Now, we need to pass all the parameters for the changed route for it to work:

<!-- ... -->
<a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id, 'company': entity.company, 'location': entity.location, 'position': entity.position }) }}">
    {{ entity.position }}
</a>
<!-- ... -->

If you have a look at generated URLs, they are not quite yet as we want them to be:

http://jobeet.local/app_dev.php/job/Sensio Labs/Paris,France/1/Web Developer
We need to “slugify” the column values by replacing all non ASCII characters by a -. Open the Job.php file and add the following methods to the class:
// ...
use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet as Jobeet;

class Job
{
    // ...

    public function getCompanySlug()
    {
        return Jobeet::slugify($this->getCompany());
    }

    public function getPositionSlug()
    {
        return Jobeet::slugify($this->getPosition());
    }

    public function getLocationSlug()
    {
        return Jobeet::slugify($this->getLocation());
    }
}

You must also add the use statement before the Job class definition.
After that, create the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Utils/Jobeet.php file and add the slugify method in it:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleUtils;

class Jobeet
{
    static public function slugify($text)
    {
        // replace all non letters or digits by -
        $text = preg_replace('/W+/', '-', $text);

        // trim and lowercase
        $text = strtolower(trim($text, '-'));

        return $text;
    }
}

We have defined three new “virtual” accessors: getCompanySlug(), getPositionSlug(), and getLocationSlug(). They return their corresponding column value after applying it the slugify() method. Now, you can replace the real column names by these virtual ones in the template:

<!-- ... -->
<a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id, 'company': entity.companyslug, 'location': entity.locationslug, 'position': entity.positionslug}) }}">
   {{ entity.position }}
</a>
<!-- ... -->

Route Requirements

The routing system has a built-in validation feature. Each pattern variable can be validated by a regular expression defined using the requirements entry of a route definition:

# ...
ibw_job_show:
    pattern:  /{company}/{location}/{id}/{position}
    defaults: { _controller: "IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show" }
    requirements:
        id:  d+

# ...

The above requirements entry forces the id to be a numeric value. If not, the route won’t match.

Route Debugging

While adding and customizing routes, it’s helpful to be able to visualize and get detailed information about your routes. A great way to see every route in your application is via the router:debug console command. Execute the command by running the following from the root of your project:

php app/console router:debug

The command will print a helpful list of all the configured routes in your application. You can also get very specific information on a single route by including the route name after the command:

php app/console router:debug ibw_job_show

Final Thoughts

That’s all for today! To learn more about the Symfony2 routing system read the Routing chapter form the book.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 4: The Controller and the View

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

Today, we are going to customize the basic job controller we created yesterday. It already has most of the code we need for Jobeet:

  • A page to list all jobs
  • A page to create a new job
  • A page to update an existing job
  • A page to delete a job

Although the code is ready to be used as is, we will refactor the templates to match closer to the Jobeet mockups.

The MVC Arhitecture

For web development, the most common solution for organizing your code nowadays is the MVC design pattern. In short, the MVC design pattern defines a way to organize your code according to its nature. This pattern separates the code into three layers:

  • The Model layer defines the business logic (the database belongs to this layer). You already know that Symfony stores all the classes and files related to the Model in the Entity/ directory of your bundles.
  • The View is what the user interacts with (a template engine is part of this layer). In Symfony 2.3.2, the View layer is mainly made of Twig templates. They are stored in various Resources/views/ directories as we will see later in these lines.
  • The Controller is a piece of code that calls the Model to get some data that it passes to the View for rendering to the client. When we installed Symfony at the beginning of this tutorial, we saw that all requests are managed by front controllers (app.php and app_dev.php). These front controllers delegate the real work to actions.

The Layout

If you have a closer look at the mockups, you will notice that much of each page looks the same. You already know that code duplication is bad, whether we are talking about HTML or PHP code, so we need to find a way to prevent these common view elements from resulting in code duplication.

One way to solve the problem is to define a header and a footer and include them in each template. A better way is to use another design pattern to solve this problem: the decorator design pattern. The decorator design pattern resolves the problem the other way around: the template is decorated after the content is rendered by a global template, called a layout.

Symfony2 does not came with a default layout, so we will create one and use it to decorate our application pages.

Create a new file layout.html.twig in the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/views/ directory and put in the following code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>
            {% block title %}
                Jobeet - Your best job board
            {% endblock %}
        </title>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
        {% block stylesheets %}
            <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/main.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
        {% endblock %}
        {% block javascripts %}
        {% endblock %}
        <link rel="shortcut icon" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/favicon.ico') }}" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="container">
            <div id="header">
                <div class="content">
                    <h1><a href="{{ path('ibw_job') }}">
                        <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/logo.jpg') }}" alt="Jobeet Job Board" />
                    </a></h1>

                    <div id="sub_header">
                        <div class="post">
                            <h2>Ask for people</h2>
                            <div>
                                <a href="{{ path('ibw_job') }}">Post a Job</a>
                            </div>
                        </div>

                        <div class="search">
                            <h2>Ask for a job</h2>
                            <form action="" method="get">
                                <input type="text" name="keywords" id="search_keywords" />
                                <input type="submit" value="search" />
                                <div class="help">
                                    Enter some keywords (city, country, position, ...)
                                </div>
                            </form>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>

           <div id="content">
               {% for flashMessage in app.session.flashbag.get('notice') %}
                   <div class="flash_notice">
                       {{ flashMessage }}
                   </div>
               {% endfor %}

               {% for flashMessage in app.session.flashbag.get('error') %}
                   <div class="flash_error">
                       {{ flashMessage }}
                   </div>
               {% endfor %}

               <div class="content">
                   {% block content %}
                   {% endblock %}
               </div>
           </div>

           <div id="footer">
               <div class="content">
                   <span class="symfony">
                       <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/jobeet-mini.png') }}" />
                           powered by <a href="http://www.symfony.com/">
                           <img src="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/images/symfony.gif') }}" alt="symfony framework" />
                       </a>
                   </span>
                   <ul>
                       <li><a href="">About Jobeet</a></li>
                       <li class="feed"><a href="">Full feed</a></li>
                       <li><a href="">Jobeet API</a></li>
                       <li class="last"><a href="">Affiliates</a></li>
                   </ul>
               </div>
           </div>
       </div>
   </body>
</html>

Twig Blocks

In Twig, the default Symfony template engine, you can define blocks as we did above. A twig block can have a default content (look at the title block, for example) that can be replaced or extended in the child template as you will see in a moment.

Now, to make use of the layout we created, we will need to edit all the job templates (index, edit, new and show from src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/views/Job/) to extend the parent template (the layout) and to overwrite the content block we defined with the body block content from the original template

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block content %}
    <!-- original body block code goes here -->
{% endblock %}

The Stylesheets, Images and JavaScripts

As this is not about web design, we have already prepared all the needed assets we will use for Jobeet: download the image files archive and put them into the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/public/images/ directory; download the stylesheet files archive and put them into the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/public/css/ directory.

Now run

php app/console assets:install web --symlink

to tell Symfony to make them available to the public.

If you look in the css folder, you will notice that we have four css files: admin.css, job.css,jobs.css and main.css. The main.css is needed in all Jobeet pages, so we included it in the layout in the stylesheet twig block. The rest are more specialized css files and we need them only in specific pages.

To add a new css file in a template, we will overwrite the stylesheet block, but call the parent before adding the new css file (so we would have the main.css and the additional css files we need).

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/jobs.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

<!-- rest of the code -->
{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/job.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

<!-- rest of the code -->

The Job Homepage Action

Each action is represented by a method of a class. For the job homepage, the class is JobController and the method is indexAction(). It retrieves all the jobs from the database.

// ...

public function indexAction()
{
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

    $entities = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->findAll();

    return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:index.html.twig', array(
        'entities' => $entities
    ));
}

// ...

Let’s have a closer look at the code: the indexAction() method gets the Doctrine entity manager object, which is responsible for handling the process of persisting and fetching objects to and from database, and then the repository, that will create a query to retrieve all the jobs. It returns a Doctrine ArrayCollection of Job objects that are passed to the template (the View).

The Job Homepage Template

The index.html.twig template generates an HTML table for all the jobs. Here is the current template code:

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/jobs.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <h1>Job list</h1>

    <table class="records_list">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>Id</th>
                <th>Type</th>
                <th>Company</th>
                <th>Logo</th>
                <th>Url</th>
                <th>Position</th>
                <th>Location</th>
                <th>Description</th>
                <th>How_to_apply</th>
                <th>Token</th>
                <th>Is_public</th>
                <th>Is_activated</th>
                <th>Email</th>
                <th>Expires_at</th>
                <th>Created_at</th>
                <th>Updated_at</th>
                <th>Actions</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        {% for entity in entities %}
            <tr>
                <td><a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id }) }}">{{ entity.id }}</a></td>
                <td>{{ entity.type }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.company }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.logo }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.url }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.position }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.location }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.description }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.howtoapply }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.token }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.ispublic }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.isactivated }}</td>
                <td>{{ entity.email }}</td>
                <td>{% if entity.expiresat %}{{ entity.expiresat|date('Y-m-d H:i:s') }}{% endif%}</td>
                <td>{% if entity.createdat %}{{ entity.createdat|date('Y-m-d H:i:s') }}{% endif%}</td>
                <td>{% if entity.updatedat %}{{ entity.updatedat|date('Y-m-d H:i:s') }}{% endif%}</td>
                <td>
                    <ul>
                        <li>
                            <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id }) }}">show</a>
                        </li>
                        <li>
                            <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'id': entity.id }) }}">edit </a>
                        </li>
                    </ul>
                </td>
            </tr>
        {% endfor %}
        </tbody>
    </table>

    <ul>
        <li>
            <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_new') }}">
                Create a new entry
            </a>
        </li>
    </ul>
{% endblock %}

Let’s clean this up a bit to only display a sub-set of the available columns. Replace the twig block content with the one below:

{% block content %}
    <div id="jobs">
        <table class="jobs">
            {% for entity in entities %}
                <tr class="{{ cycle(['even', 'odd'], loop.index) }}">
                    <td class="location">{{ entity.location }}</td>
                    <td class="position">
                        <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_show', { 'id': entity.id }) }}">
                            {{ entity.position }}
                        </a>
                    </td>
                    <td class="company">{{ entity.company }}</td>
                </tr>
            {% endfor %}
        </table>
    </div>
{% endblock %}

Day 4 - 2 jobs

The Job Page Template

Now let’s customize the template of the job page. Open the show.html.twig file and replace its content with the following code:

{% extends 'IbwJobeetBundle::layout.html.twig' %}

{% block title %}
    {{ entity.company }} is looking for a {{ entity.position }}
{% endblock %}

{% block stylesheets %}
    {{ parent() }}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('bundles/ibwjobeet/css/job.css') }}" type="text/css" media="all" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <div id="job">
        <h1>{{ entity.company }}</h1>
        <h2>{{ entity.location }}</h2>
        <h3>
            {{ entity.position }}
            <small> - {{ entity.type }}</small>
        </h3>

        {% if entity.logo %}
            <div class="logo">
                <a href="{{ entity.url }}">
                    <img src="/uploads/jobs/{{ entity.logo }}"
                        alt="{{ entity.company }} logo" />
                </a>
            </div>
        {% endif %}

        <div class="description">
            {{ entity.description|nl2br }}
        </div>

        <h4>How to apply?</h4>

        <p class="how_to_apply">{{ entity.howtoapply }}</p>

        <div class="meta">
            <small>posted on {{ entity.createdat|date('m/d/Y') }}</small>
        </div>

        <div style="padding: 20px 0">
            <a href="{{ path('ibw_job_edit', { 'id': entity.id }) }}">
                Edit
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
{% endblock %}

Day 4 - individual job

The Job Page Action

The job page is generated by the show action, defined in the showAction() method of the JobController:

public function showAction($id)
{
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();

    $entity = $em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->find($id);

    if (!$entity) {
        throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Job entity.');
    }

    $deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($id);

    return $this->render('IbwJobeetBundle:Job:show.html.twig', array(
        'entity' => $entity,
        'delete_form' => $deleteForm->createView(),
    ));
}

As in the index action, the IbwJobeetBundle repository class is used to retrieve a job, this time using the find() method. The parameter of this method is the unique identifier of a job, its primary key. The next section will explain why the $id parameter of the actionShow() function contains the job primary key.

If the job does not exist in the database, we want to forward the user to a 404 page, which is exactly what the throw $this->createNotFoundException() does.

As for exceptions, the page displayed to the user is different in the prod environment and in the dev ennvironment.

Day 4 - error1

Day 4 - error2

That’s all for today! Tomorrow we will get you familiar with the routing features.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Symfony2 Jobeet Day 3: The Data Model

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

If you’re itching to open your text editor and lay down some PHP, you will be happy to know that today will get us into some development. We will define the Jobeet data model, use an ORM to interact with the database and build the first module of the application. But as Symfony does a lot of work for us, we will have a fully functional web module without writing too much PHP code.

The Relational Model

The user stories from the previous day describe the main objects of our project: jobs, affiliates, and categories. Here is the corresponding entity relationship diagram:

Day3 - entity_diagram

 

In addition to the columns described in the stories, we have also added created_at and updated_at columns. We will configure Symfony to set their value automatically when an object is saved or updated.

The Database

To store the jobs, affiliates and categories in the database, Symfony 2.3.2 uses Doctrine ORM. To define the database connection parameters, you have to edit the app/config/parameters.yml file (for this tutorial we will use MySQL):

parameters:
    database_driver: pdo_mysql
    database_host: localhost
    database_port: null
    database_name: jobeet
    database_user: root
    database_password: password
    # ...

Now that Doctrine knows about your database, you can have it create the database for you by typing the following command in your terminal:

php app/console doctrine:database:create

The Schema

To tell Doctrine about our objects, we will create “metadata” files that will describe how our objects will be stored in the database. Now go to your code editor and create a directory named doctrine, inside src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/config directory. Doctrine will contain three files: Category.orm.yml, Job.orm.yml and Affiliate.orm.yml.

IbwJobeetBundleEntityCategory:
    type: entity
    table: category
    id:
        id:
            type: integer
            generator: { strategy: AUTO }
    fields:
        name:
            type: string
            length: 255
            unique: true
    oneToMany:
        jobs:
            targetEntity: Job
            mappedBy: category
    manyToMany:
        affiliates:
            targetEntity: Affiliate
            mappedBy: categories
IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob:
    type: entity
    table: job
    id:
        id:
            type: integer
            generator: { strategy: AUTO }
    fields:
        type:
            type: string
            length: 255
            nullable: true
        company:
            type: string
            length: 255
        logo:
            type: string
            length: 255
            nullable: true
        url:
            type: string
            length: 255
            nullable: true
        position:
            type: string
            length: 255
        location:
            type: string
            length: 255
        description:
            type: text
        how_to_apply:
            type: text
        token:
            type: string
            length: 255
            unique: true
        is_public:
            type: boolean
            nullable: true
        is_activated:
            type: boolean
            nullable: true
        email:
            type: string
            length: 255
        expires_at:
            type: datetime
        created_at:
            type: datetime
        updated_at:
            type: datetime
            nullable: true
    manyToOne:
        category:
            targetEntity: Category
            inversedBy: jobs
            joinColumn:
                name: category_id
                referencedColumnName: id
    lifecycleCallbacks:
        prePersist: [ setCreatedAtValue ]
        preUpdate: [ setUpdatedAtValue ]
IbwJobeetBundleEntityAffiliate:
    type: entity
    table: affiliate
    id:
        id:
            type: integer
            generator: { strategy: AUTO }
    fields:
        url:
            type: string
            length: 255
        email:
            type: string
            length: 255
            unique: true
        token:
            type: string
            length: 255
        is_active:
            type: boolean
            nullable: true
        created_at:
            type: datetime
    manyToMany:
        categories:
            targetEntity: Category
            joinTable:
                name: category_affiliate
                joinColumns:
                    affiliate_id:
                        referencedColumnName: id
                inverseJoinColumns:
                    category_id:
                        referencedColumnName: id
    lifecycleCallbacks:
        prePersist: [ setCreatedAtValue ]

The ORM

Now Doctrine can generate the classes that define our objects for us with the command:

php app/console doctrine:generate:entities IbwJobeetBundle

If you take a look into Entity directory from IbwJobeetBundle, you will find the newly generated classes in there: Category.php, Job.php and Affiliate.php. Open Job.php and set the created_at and updated_at values as below:

// ...

    /**
     * @ORMPrePersist
     */
    public function setCreatedAtValue()
    {
        if(!$this->getCreatedAt()) {
            $this->created_at = new DateTime();
        }
    }

    /**
     * @ORMPreUpdate
     */
    public function setUpdatedAtValue()
    {
        $this->updated_at = new DateTime();
    }

You will do the same for created_at value of the Affiliate class:

// ...

    /**
     * @ORMPrePersist
     */
    public function setCreatedAtValue()
    {
        $this->created_at = new DateTime();
    }

// ...

This will make Doctrine to set the created_at and updated_at values when saving or updating objects. This behaviour was defined in the Affiliate.orm.yml and Job.orm.yml files listed above.

We will also ask Doctrine to create our database tables with the command below:

php app/console doctrine:schema:update --force

This task should only be used during the development. For a more robust method of systematically updating your production database, read about Doctrine migrations.

The tables have been created in the database but there is no data in them. For any web application, there are three types of data: initial data (this is needed for the application to work, in our case we will have some initial categories and an admin user), test data (needed for the application to be tested) and user data (created by users during the normal life of the application).

To populate the database with some initial data, we will use DoctrineFixturesBundle. To setup this bundle, we have to follow the next steps:

1. Add the following to your composer.json file, in the require section:

// ...
    "require": {
        // ...
        "doctrine/doctrine-fixtures-bundle": "dev-master",
        "doctrine/data-fixtures": "dev-master"
    },

// ...

2. Update the vendor libraries:

php composer.phar update

3. Register the bundle DoctrineFixturesBundle in app/AppKernel.php:

// ...

public function registerBundles()
{
    $bundles = array(
        // ...
        new DoctrineBundleFixturesBundleDoctrineFixturesBundle()
    );

    // ...
}

Now that everything is set up, we will create some new classes to load data in a new folder, named src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM, in our bundle:

<?php
namespace IbwJobeetBundleDataFixturesORM;

use DoctrineCommonPersistenceObjectManager;
use DoctrineCommonDataFixturesAbstractFixture;
use DoctrineCommonDataFixturesOrderedFixtureInterface;
use IbwJobeetBundleEntityCategory;

class LoadCategoryData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $em)
    {
        $design = new Category();
        $design->setName('Design');

        $programming = new Category();
        $programming->setName('Programming');

        $manager = new Category();
        $manager->setName('Manager');

        $administrator = new Category();
        $administrator->setName('Administrator');

        $em->persist($design);
        $em->persist($programming);
        $em->persist($manager);
        $em->persist($administrator);
        $em->flush();

        $this->addReference('category-design', $design);
        $this->addReference('category-programming', $programming);
        $this->addReference('category-manager', $manager);
        $this->addReference('category-administrator', $administrator);
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 1; // the order in which fixtures will be loaded
    }
}

 

<?php
namespace IbwJobeetBundleDataFixturesORM;

use DoctrineCommonPersistenceObjectManager;
use DoctrineCommonDataFixturesAbstractFixture;
use DoctrineCommonDataFixturesOrderedFixtureInterface;
use IbwJobeetBundleEntityJob;

class LoadJobData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $em)
    {
         $job_sensio_labs = new Job();
         $job_sensio_labs->setCategory($em->merge($this->getReference('category-programming')));
         $job_sensio_labs->setType('full-time');
         $job_sensio_labs->setCompany('Sensio Labs');
         $job_sensio_labs->setLogo('sensio-labs.gif');
         $job_sensio_labs->setUrl('http://www.sensiolabs.com/');
         $job_sensio_labs->setPosition('Web Developer');
         $job_sensio_labs->setLocation('Paris, France');
         $job_sensio_labs->setDescription('You've already developed websites with symfony and you want to work with Open-Source technologies. You have a minimum of 3 years experience in web development with PHP or Java and you wish to participate to development of Web 2.0 sites using the best frameworks available.');
         $job_sensio_labs->setHowToApply('Send your resume to fabien.potencier [at] sensio.com');
         $job_sensio_labs->setIsPublic(true);
         $job_sensio_labs->setIsActivated(true);
         $job_sensio_labs->setToken('job_sensio_labs');
         $job_sensio_labs->setEmail('job@example.com');
         $job_sensio_labs->setExpiresAt(new DateTime('+30 days'));
         $job_extreme_sensio = new Job();
         $job_extreme_sensio->setCategory($em->merge($this->getReference('category-design')));
         $job_extreme_sensio->setType('part-time');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setCompany('Extreme Sensio');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setLogo('extreme-sensio.gif');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setUrl('http://www.extreme-sensio.com/');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setPosition('Web Designer');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setLocation('Paris, France');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setDescription('Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in.');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setHowToApply('Send your resume to fabien.potencier [at] sensio.com');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setIsPublic(true);
         $job_extreme_sensio->setIsActivated(true);
         $job_extreme_sensio->setToken('job_extreme_sensio');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setEmail('job@example.com');
         $job_extreme_sensio->setExpiresAt(new DateTime('+30 days'));

         $em->persist($job_sensio_labs);
         $em->persist($job_extreme_sensio);
         $em->flush();
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 2; // the order in which fixtures will be loaded
    }
}

Once your fixtures have been written, you can load them via the command line by using thedoctrine:fixtures:load command:

php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load

Now, if you check your database, you should see the data loaded into tables.

See it in the browser

If you run the command below, it will create a new controller src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Controllers/JobController.php with actions for listing, creating, editing and deleting jobs (and their corresponding templates, form and routes):

php app/console doctrine:generate:crud --entity=IbwJobeetBundle:Job --route-prefix=ibw_job --with-write --format=yml

After running this command, you will need to do some configurations the prompter requires you to. So just select the default answers for them.

To view this in the browser, we must import the new routes that were created in src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Resources/config/routing/job.yml into our bundle main routing file:

IbwJobeetBundle_job:
        resource: "@IbwJobeetBundle/Resources/config/routing/job.yml"
        prefix:   /job

# ...

We will also need to add a _toString() method to our Category class to be used by the category drop down from the edit job form:

// ...

public function __toString()
{
    return $this->getName() ? $this->getName() : "";
}

// ...

Clear the cache:

php app/console cache:clear --env=dev
php app/console cache:clear --env=prod

You can now test the job controller in a browser: http://jobeet.local/job/ or, in development environment, http://jobeet.local/app_dev.php/job/ .

Day 3 - index_page

You can now create and edit jobs. Try to leave a required field blank, or try to enter invalid data. That’s right, Symfony has created basic validation rules by introspecting the database schema.

That’s all. Today, we have barely written PHP code but we have a working web module for the job model, ready to be tweaked and customized. Tomorrow, we will get familiar with the controller and the view. See you next time!

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Symfony2 Jobeet Day 2: The Project

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.
We have not written a single line of code yet, but, in Day 1, we setup the environment and created an empty Symfony project.

This day is about the project specifications. Before diving into the code head-first, let’s describe the project a bit more. The following sections describe the features we want to implement in the first version/iteration of the project with some simple stories.

User Stories

The Jobeet website will have four type of users: admin (owns and manages the website), user (visits the website looking for a job), poster (visits the website to post jobs) and affiliate (re-publishes jobs on his website).

In the original tutorial, we had to make two applications, the frontend, where the users interact with the website, and the backend, where admins manage the website. Using Symfony 2.3.2, we would not do this anymore. We will have only one application and, in it, a separate secured section for admins.

Story F1: On the homepage, the user sees the latest active jobs

When a user comes to Jobeet website, he sees a list of active jobs. The jobs are sorted by category and then by publication date – newer jobs first. For each job, only the location, the position available and the company are displayed.

For each category, the list shows the first 10 jobs and a link that allows to list all the jobs for a given category (Story F2).

On the homepage, the user can refine the job list (Story F3) or post a new job (Story F5).

Story F2: A user can ask for all the jobs in a given category

When a user clicks on a category name or on a “more jobs” link on the homepage, he sees all the jobs for this category sorted by date.

The list is paginated with 20 jobs per page.

Story F3: A user refines the list with some keywords

The user can enter some keywords to refine his search. Keywords can be words found in the location, the position, the category or the company fields.

Story F4: A user clicks on a job to see more detailed information

The user can select a job from a list to see more detailed information.

Story F5: A user posts a job

A user can post a job. A job is made of several pieces of information:

  • Company
  • Type (full-time, part-time or freelance)
  • Logo (optional)
  • URL (optional)
  • Position
  • Location
  • Category (the user chooses in a list of possible categories)
  • Job description (URLs and emails are automatically linked)
  • How to apply (URLs and emails are automatically linked)
  • Public (wether the job can also be published on affiliate websites)
  • Email (email of poster)

The process has only two steps: first, the user fills in the form with all the needed information to describe the job, then validates the information by previewing the final job page.

There is no need to create an acount to post a job. A job can be modified afterwards thanks to a specific URL (protected by a token given to the user when the job is created).

Each job post is online for 30 days (this is configurable by admin). A user can come back to re-activate or extend the validity of the job for an extra 30 days, but only when the job expires in less than 5 days.

Story F6: A user applies to become an affiliate

A user needs to apply to become an affiliate and be authorized to use Jobeet API. To apply, he must give the following information:

  • Name
  • Email
  • Website URL

The affiliate account must be activated by the admin (Story B3). Once activated, the affiliate receives a token to use with the API via email.

Story F7: An affiliate retrieves the current active job list

An affiliate can retrieve the current job list by calling the API with his affiliate token. The list can be returned in the XML, JSON or YAML format. The affiliate can limit the number of jobs to be returned and, also, refine his query by specifying a category.

Story B1: An admin configures the website

An admin can edit the categories available on the website.

Story B2: An admin manages the jobs

An admin can edit and remove any posted job.

Story B3: An admin manages the affiliates

The admin can create or edit affiliates. He is responsible for activating an affiliate and can also disable one. When the admin activates a new affiliate, the system creates a unique token to be used by the affiliate.

As a developer, you never start coding from the first day. Firstly, you need to gather the requirements of your project and understand how your project is supposed to work. That’s what you have done today. See you tomorrow!

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Symfony2 Jobeet Day 1: Starting up the Project

* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

What is Jobeet?

Jobeet is an Open-Source job board software which provides you day-by-day tutorials, that will help you learn the latest Web Technolgy, Symfony 2.3.2 (for those who don’t know yet, Symfony is a framework for PHP).

Each chapter/day is meant to last about one hour, and will be the occasion to learn Symfony by coding a real website, from start to finish.

Every day, new features will be added to the application and we’ll take advantage of this development to introduce you to new Symfony functionalities, as well as good practices in Symfony web development.

Today, being your first day, you won’t be writing any code. Instead, you will setup a working development environment.

Setting up the working development environment

First of all, you need to check that your computer has a friendly working environment for web development. We will use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server installed in a VMware Player virtual machine. At a minimum, you need a web server (Apache, for instance), a database engine (MySQL) and PHP 5.3.3 or later.

1. Install Apache, your web server:

sudo apt-get install apache2

and enable Apache mod-rewrite:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

2, Install the MySQL Server:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

3. Install PHP, the server scripting language

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql

4. Install Intl extension:

sudo apt-get install php5-intl

5. Now, you need to restart Apache service:

sudo service apache2 restart

Download and install Symfony 2.3.2

The first thing to do is to prepare a directory on your web server where you want to install the new project. Let’s call it jobeet: /var/www/jobeet.

mkdir /var/www/jobeet

We have a directory prepared, but what to put in it? Go to http://symfony.com/download, choose Symfony Standard 2.3.2 without vendors and download it. Now, unzip the files inside the Symfony directory to your prepared directory, jobeet.

Updating Vendors

At this point, you’ve downloaded a fully-functional Symfony project in which you’ll start to develop your own application. A Symfony project depends on a number of external libraries. These are downloaded into the vendor/ directory of your project via a library called Composer.

Composer is a dependency management library for PHP, which you can use to download the Symfony 2.3.2 Standard Edition. Start by downloading Composer onto your jobeet directory:

curl -s https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

If you don’t have curl extension installed, you can install it using this command:

sudo apt-get install curl

Next, type the following command to start downloading all the necessary vendor libraries:

php composer.phar install

Web Server Configuration

A good web practice is to put under the web root directory only the files that need to be accessed by a web browser, like stylesheets, JavaScripts and images. By default, it’s recommended to store these files under the web/ sub-directory of a symfony project.

To configure Apache for your new project, you will create a virtual host. In order to do that, go to your terminal and type in the next command :

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/jobeet.local

Now, a file named jobeet.local is created. Put the following inside that file, then hit Control – O and Enter to save it, then Control – X to exit the editor.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName jobeet.local
    DocumentRoot /var/www/jobeet/web
    DirectoryIndex app.php
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/jobeet-error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/jobeet-access.log combined
    <Directory "/var/www/jobeet/web">
        AllowOverride All
        Allow from All
     </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

The domain name jobeet.local used in the Apache configuration has to be declared locally. If you run a Linux system, it has to be done in the /etc/hosts file. If you run Windows, this file is located in the C:WindowsSystem32driversetc directory. Add the following line:

127.0.0.1 jobeet.local

Replace 127.0.0.1 with the ip of your web server machine in case you are working on a remote server.

If you want this to work, you need to enable the newly created virtual host and restart your Apache. So go to your terminal and type:

sudo a2ensite jobeet.local
sudo service apache2 restart

Symfony comes with a visual server configuration tester to help make sure your Web server and PHP are correctly configured to use Symfony. Use the following URL to check your configuration:

http://jobeet.local/config.php

sf2-config (1)

If you don’t run this from your localhost, you should locate and open web/config.php file and comment the lines that restrict the access outside localhost:
if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'])) {
    exit('This script cannot be run from the CLI. Run it from a browser.');
}

/*
if (!in_array(@$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], array(
    '127.0.0.1',
    '::1',
))) {
    header('HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden');
    exit('This script is only accessible from localhost.');
}
*/

// ...

Do the same for web/app_dev.php:

use SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationRequest;
use SymfonyComponentDebugDebug;

// If you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#configuration-and-setup for more information
//umask(0000);

// This check prevents access to debug front controllers that are deployed by accident to production servers.
// Feel free to remove this, extend it, or make something more sophisticated.
/*
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])
    || isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])
    || !in_array(@$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], array('127.0.0.1', 'fe80::1', '::1'))
) {
    header('HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden');
    exit('You are not allowed to access this file. Check '.basename(__FILE__).' for more information.');
}
*/

$loader = require_once __DIR__.'/../app/bootstrap.php.cache';
Debug::enable();

require_once __DIR__.'/../app/AppKernel.php';

// ...

Probably, you will get all kind of requirements when you go to config.php. Below, is a list of things to do for not getting all those “warnings”.

1. Change the permissions of app/cache and app/logs:

sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache
sudo chmod -R 777 app/logs
sudo setfacl -dR -m u::rwX app/cache app/logs

Install ACL if you don’t have it yet:

sudo apt-get install acl

2. Set the date.timezone setting in php.ini

date.timezone = Europe/Bucharest
sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Find the date.timezone setting for [date] section and set it to your timezone. After that, erase “;”, placed at the beginning of the line.
3. Set the short_open_tag setting to off in the same php.ini file
short_open_tag
  Default Value: Off

4. Install and enable a PHP Accelerator (APC recommended)

sudo apt-get install php-apc
sudo service apache2 restart

After restarting Apache, open a browser window and type in http://jobeet.local/app_dev.php. You should see the following page:

Day 1 - SF_welcome

Symfony2 Console

Symfony2 comes with the console component tool that you will use for different tasks. To see a list of things it can do for you type at the command prompt:

php app/console list

Creating the Application Bundle

What exactly is a bundle?

Is similar to a plugin in other software, but even better. The key difference is that everything is a bundle in Symfony 2.3.2, including both core framework functionality and the code written for your application.

A bundle is a structured set of files within a directory that implement a single feature.

Tips: A bundle can live anywhere as long as it can be autoloaded (app/autoload.php).

You can read more here: http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/page_creation.html#the-bundle-system – The Bundle System.

Creating a basic bundle skeleton

Run the following command to start the Symfony’s bundle generator:

php app/console generate:bundle --namespace=Ibw/JobeetBundle

The generator will ask you some questions before generating the bundle. Here are the questions and answers (all, except one, are the default answers):

Bundle name [IbwJobeetBundle]: IbwJobeetBundle
Target directory [/var/www/jobeet/src]: /var/www/jobeet/src
Configuration format (yml, xml, php, or annotation) [yml]: 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]? yes
Confirm automatic update of the Routing [yes]? yes

Clear the cache after generating the new bundle with:

php app/console cache:clear --env=prod
php app/console cache:clear --env=dev

The new Jobeet bundle can be now found in the src directory of your project: src/Ibw/JobeetBundle. The bundle generator made a DefaultController with an index action. You can access this in your browser: http://jobeet.local/hello/jobeet or http://jobeet.local/app_dev.php/hello/jobeet.

How to remove the AcmeDemoBundle

The Symfony 2.3.2 Standard Edition comes with a complete demo that lives inside a bundle called AcmeDemoBundle. It is a great boilerplate to refer to while starting a project, but you’ll probably want to eventually remove it.

1. Type the command to delete Acme directory:

rm -rf /var/www/jobeet/src/Acme

2. Go to: /var/www/jobeet/app/AppKernel.php and delete:

// ...

$bundles[] = new AcmeDemoBundleAcmeDemoBundle();

// ...

and now delete from app/config/routing_dev.yml:

# ... 

# AcmeDemoBundle routes (to be removed)
_acme_demo:
    resource: "@AcmeDemoBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml"

3. Finally, clear the cache.

The Environments

Symfony 2.3.2 has different environments. If you look in the project’s web directory, you will see two php files: app.php and app_dev.php. These files are called front controllers; all requests to the application are made through them. The app.php file is for production environment and app_dev.php is used by web developers when they work on the application in the development environment. The development environment will prove very handy because it will show you all the errors and warnings and the Web Debug Toolbar – the developer’s best friend.

That’s all for today. See you on the next day of this tutorial, when we will talk about what exactly the Jobeet website will be about!

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