Question

For my Symfony2 project, I’d like to stick with the Fat Model Skinny Controller approach. I’ve got things working, however, there’s a lot of duplication / unnecessary business logic in my controller. What’s the best approach for cleaning things up?

The Controller

<?php

namespace TestApp\PeopleBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;

class PeopleController extends Controller {

    public function indexAction() {
        return $this->render('TestAppPeopleBundle:People:index.html.twig');
    }
    public function loadAction() {
        $repository = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('TestAppPeopleBundle:People');
        $request = $this->getRequest();
        $parsedFilters = array();
        $extFilterParser = $this->get('ext_filter_parser');
        $filters = $request->query->get('filter');
        if(empty($filters) === FALSE) {
            $parsedFilters = $extFilterParser->setFilters($filters)->parse()->getParsedFilters();
        }
        $format = $request->getRequestFormat();
        $people = $repository->getListOfPeople($parsedFilters);
        $data = array('success' => true, 'people' => $people);
        return $this->render('::base.'.$format.'.twig', array('data' => $data));
    }
    public function exportGridAction($format) {
        $repository = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('TestAppPeopleBundle:People');
        $request = $this->getRequest();
        $parsedFilters = array();
        $extFilterParser = $this->get('ext_filter_parser');
        $filters = $request->query->get('filter');
        if(empty($filters) === FALSE) {
            $parsedFilters = $extFilterParser->setFilters($filters)->parse()->getParsedFilters();
        }
        $format = $request->getRequestFormat();
        $people = $repository->getListOfPeople($parsedFilters);
         $grid = $request->get('grid');
         return $this->render('::extgrid.'.$format.'.twig', array('grid' => $grid, 'data' => $people));

    }
}

The Entity Repository (People)

<?php

namespace TestApp\PeopleBundle\Repository;

use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;

/**
 * PeopleRepository
 *
 * This class was generated by the Doctrine ORM. Add your own custom
 * repository methods below.
 */
class PeopleRepository extends EntityRepository {

    public function getQbForListOfPeople(array $filters) {
        $queryBuilder = $this->createQueryBuilder('p');
        $queryBuilder->select('p.id', 'p.firstName', 'p.lastName', 'p.dateOfBirth', 'p.address', 'p.city', 'p.state', 'p.zipCode');
        foreach($filters as $filter) {
            $queryBuilder->andWhere('p.' . $filter['expression'] . ' ' . $filter['value']);
        }
        $queryBuilder->setMaxResults(50);
        return $queryBuilder;
    }

    public function getListOfPeople() {
        return $this->getQbForListOfPeople(array())->getQuery()->getResult();
    }

}

• My thought was to put the logic for parsing filters out of the $_GET or $_POST inside the repository, but the repository doesn’t have access to the Request Object like the controller does.

• My second thought was to put the logic for parsing filters out of the $_GET or $_POST inside the ExtFilterParser Service, but the service doesn’t have access to the Request Object like the controller does.

Answer 1

I would do your second thought and inject @request (see my answer with code on this question – How to inject the @request into a service? ). This approach let you move away this code from controller into service:

    $parsedFilters = array();
    $extFilterParser = $this->get('ext_filter_parser');
    $filters = $request->query->get('filter');
    if(empty($filters) === FALSE) {
        $parsedFilters = $extFilterParser->setFilters($filters)->parse()->getParsedFilters();
    }

Second, $request will be populated with Request object without having to specify $request = $this->getRequest(); if you use this:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

public function loadAction(Request $request) { ... }