Remark: The answers generally apply to all the versions of Symfony if not specified otherwise. And the exemplary code uses Propel.

1. How to gain access to the Request object outside the action?

In any place in your Symfony project you can initialize an instance of sfContext by simply calling sfContext::getInstance() and use it to retrieve other important object including the Request.

For example:

$context = sfContext::getInstance();
$context->getActionName();
$context->getActionStack();
$context->getController();
$context->getDatabaseConnection();
$context->getLogger();
$context->getModuleDirectory();
$context->getModuleName();
$context->getRequest();
$context->getResponse();
$context->getUser();

2. How to make  an object_select_tag create a drop down containing a sorted list?

Let’s say that we have an object $record with person_id field, which is a foreign reference to a Person class. We want in our form to display object_select_tag that will contain all the possible choices of Person objects sorted for example by their name.

By calling:

object_select_tag ($record, ‘getPersonId’);

We only get a list sorted by id (probably)  – because object_select_tag uses PersonPeer::doSelect() by default.

So the solution is:

object_select_tag ($record, ‘getPersonId’, array (

‘related_class’ => ‘Person’,
‘peer_method’ => ‘doOrderedSelect’,
‘include_blank’ => true)

) ;

And we just need to create a doOrderedSelect method in PersonPeer class, that might look like this:

public static function doOrderedSelect($c = ”)
{

If(!$c)
$c = new Criteria();

$c->addAscendingOrderByColumn(PersonPeer::NAME);
return parent::doSelect($c);

}

And remember that for all of that to work Person class has to have a __toString() method [see point 3].

3. The magic __toString() method.

The most commonly used PHP5 magic method  in Symfony projects is the __toString() method, which specifies what value should be returned when the given object is cast to string (or simply used as a string).

It is a very natural programming approach to specify what ‘natural language phrase’ should be associated with an object instance.  A short example to illustrate that:

class Person extends BasePerson
{

public function __toString()
{

return $this->getName() . ‘ ‘ . $this->getSurname();

}

}

And now we can print out the name and surname of our Person class instance – let’s say $example_person – simply by writing echo $example_person.

The __toString() method is used by some of the Symfony form helpers and it’s usually worth spending a bit extra time to create those methods in our model – just for the sake of code readabilty.

But be careful when using PHP version older then 5.2 -because  __toString() method was only called when it was directly combined with echo() or print(), which might cause unexpected results sometimes.

4. How to create a paginated list in Symfony?

Symfony comes with a sfPropelPager which handles all the paging for us. I hope the preceding code is self-explanatory.

The action:

public function executeList()
{

…

$rows_per_page = sfConfig::get(’app_rows_per_page’); // Now you can set the number of rows per page in your_app/config/app.yml

$page = $this->getRequestParameter(’page’, 1);

$pager = new sfPropelPager(’YourClass’, $rows_per_page);
$pager->setCriteria($c);
$pager->setPage($page);
$pager->init();
$this->pager = $pager;

}

The template:

<?php if ($pager->haveToPaginate()): ?>
<div class=”pagination”>

<?php echo link_to(’<< ‘, ‘example/list?page=’.$pager->getFirstPage()) ?>
<?php echo link_to(’ <’, ‘example/list?page=’.$pager->getPreviousPage()) ?>

<?php $links = $pager->getLinks(); foreach ($links as $page): ?>
<?php echo ($page == $pager->getPage()) ? $page : link_to($page, ‘example/list?page=’.$page) ?>
<?php endforeach ?>

<?php echo link_to(’> ‘, ‘example/list?page=’.$pager->getNextPage()) ?>
<?php echo link_to(’ >>’, ‘example/list?page=’.$pager->getLastPage()) ?>

</div>
<?php endif; ?>

5. How to use pager with a custom peer method like doSelectJoinAll()?

Let’s assume that we have a pager used to display a list of objects with foreign references and we want to sort it by one of the fields from a foreign table. We’ll need to use o join for that and it would be nice if we could use one of the generated methods like doSelectJoin*(), e.g. doSelectJoinAll().

The solution is very simple. Before calling  $pager->init() use the pager’s setPeerMethod(). In  our case that would be:

$pager->setPeerMethod(’doSelectJoinAll’);

6. Problem with storing dates before year 1970 in some databases.

It was an issue for Symfony 1.0.X – don’t know if it applies to other versions as well.

For some db the data type date didn’t work as expected for dates prior to 01.01.1970. There exist a special, additional date type bu_date that you have to use in your schema.yml.

date_of_birth:  {  type: bu_date  }

7. JavaScript in Ajax response call is not executed.

In Symfony if the response code of the Ajax call contains JavaScript it won’t be executed by default – for security reasons.

You need to explicitly declare for Ajax helpers the ability to execute scripts in remote responses – which can be done with the script option.

Using the example from Symfony’s documentation:

<?php
// If the response of the post/delete action contains JavaScript,
// allow it to be executed by the browser
echo link_to_remote(’Delete this post’, array(
‘update’ => ‘feedback’,
‘url’    => ‘post/delete?id=’.$post->getId(),
’script’ => true,
)) ?>

8. 9. 10. … are in progress, and I’m open to your questions .

I assume that you’re working on Windows XP or Vista and starting from scratch – that means without any WWW server configured on the machine – this guide will cover all of that .  Enjoy!

What will we need?

• WAMP (version 2.0 at the moment of writing)
• and… that’s all!

Using WAMP we’ll install PEAR and Symfony right afterwards, but starting from the beginning:

Part 1 – Installing WAMP

WAMP is a self-installing, all-in-the-box package with Apache, MySQL and PHP 5 (5.2.8+) – and that’s exactly what we need (there is also PHPMyAdmin and SQLitemanager included which is nice and may come in handy). Of course it’s not the only pack like that available on the internet, very similar to WAMP is for example XAMPP – the choice is up to you. You could also install all the components manually… but what’s the point?

WAMP will auto-extract it’s files (let’s say under C:\wamp) and start off without any problems. Voila! – a running server with default configuration! That was fast, wasn’t it

You can configure WAMP’s elements by clicking its tray icon. (You can also translate WAMP to a variety of languages – right click on the icon and see for yourself )

If your WAMP fails to start and you get a warning that port 80 is being used (and you don’t have another HTTP server running on the machine) – it can be Skype. Make sure that in Skype’s options (Advanced >> Connection) the checkbox about using port 80 as alternative port for incoming connections is not ticked.

Symfony needs PHP-XSL and Apache URL Rewrite Module to function normally (which are off by default on most installs). Let’s start by activating the Rewrite module – left click on WAMP’s tray icon and than in Apache >> Apache Modules menu select rewrite_module (server will automatically reboot). Now it’s time for XSL, as in the step before: – in PHP >> PHP Extension menu look for php_xsl and click it. But there is one more php.ini file, which WAMP sometimes won’t change (no clue why) – we need to do it by hand, let’s open: C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8\php.ini and remove “;” from the line:

;extension=php_xsl.dll

Now we should add environment variables to have access to PHP i MySQL under the command line. Right-click on My Computer, than Properties. Switch to Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button. At the end of variable PATH let’s add something like ;C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8;C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.0.45\bin (paths to MySQL and PHP files separated by a semicolon).

Part 2 – PEAR Install

PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) is a PHP extension distribution system. Installation files are bundled with PHP by default, so this won’t take us long.

In the WAMP’s PHP directory (ie. C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.8\) run the go-pear.bat file. Follow the installation steps and answer the questions, the default config should be just fine.

Inside the PHP directory the installer created a PEAR_ENV.reg file, which after double-clicking will add all the PEAR variables to the registry – no need to do it by hand.

Part 3 – Finally the Symfony

Open the command line and write:

> pear channel-discover pear.symfony-project.com

If everything goes wel, you’ll see:

Adding Channel “pear.symfony-project.com” succeeded
Discovery of channel “pear.symfony-project.com” succeeded

So the time has come, write the magic line:

> pear install symfony/symfony

The download of the package shouldn’t take long (~2 MB), and PEAR automates the whole process.

Finally, to check if Symfony is installed correctly write:

symfony -V

Which should print out on the screen the version of Symfony you’ve just downloaded.

Part 4 – Your first Symfony project

Considering everything went smooth you can now write in the command line:

> cd C:\wamp\www
> mkdir myproject
> cd myproject
> symfony init-project myproject
> symfony init-app testapp

For Symfony 1.2 the proper way to init a project is:

> symfony generate:project myproject
> symfony generate:app —escaping-strategy=on —csrf-secret=Unique$ecret testapp

When calling the generate:app task, we have also passed two security related options:

• –escaping-strategy – Enables output escaping to prevent XSS attacks
• –csrf-secret – Enables session tokens in forms to prevent CSRF attacks

Yes, Symfony 1.2 will automatically protect us from the two most widespread vulnerabilities found on the web!

Congratulations!

The effects of your work can be seen at http://127.0.0.1/myproject/web/

And that’s that. I wish you many successful projects in Symfony

If you want to move on from here (with your brand new Symfony Framework on-board ):

• See my guide on configuring Apache to work hand in hand with your Symfony applications.
• Visit the Symfony official web page and enjoy the variety of guides, tutorials and well written documentation.