The document is a presentation by Chris Tankersley on using Silex, a microframework built on Symfony2 components, focusing on its advantages for small to medium projects and prototyping. It discusses the setup process, routing, form handling, and best practices for organizing code within Silex applications. It also emphasizes the use of service providers for code reusability and structured application development.

1. Complex Sites with Silex
Chris Tankersley
ZendCon 2014

2. 2
Who Am I?
● A PHP Developer for 10 Years
● Lots of projects no one uses,
and a few some do
● https://github.com/dragonmantank

3. 3
What is Silex?

4. 4
Microframework
● Built off of the Symfony2
Components
● Micro Service Container
● Provides Routing
● Provides Extensions

5. 5
Why to Not Use Silex
● You have to piece things
together
● Not great for large projects

6. 6
Why use Silex?
● You can use the libraries you
want
● Great for small/medium
projects
● Prototypers best friend

7. 7
Sites Change over time

8. 8
Silex Allows Us To Adapt

9. 9
Basic Silex App

10. 10
Set up Silex
composer require “silex/silex”:”~1.2”

11. 11
Sample Silex App
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
$app = new SilexApplication();
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {
return 'Hello World';
});
$app->run();

12. 12
Congrats!

13. 13
And you add more pages
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
$app = new SilexApplication();
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/about, function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/contact', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/services', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->run();

14. 14
Service Providers

15. 15
What do they do?
● Allows code reuse
● For both services and
controllers

16. 16
Service Providers
● Twig
● URL Generator
● Session
● Validator
● Form
● HTTP Cache
● HTTP Fragments
● Security
● Remember Me
● Switftmailer
● Monolog
● Translation
● Serializer
● Doctrine
● Controllers as
Services

17. 17
And you add templating
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
$app = new SilexApplication();
$app->register(new SilexProviderTwigServiceProvider(), array(
'twig.path' => __DIR__.'/../views',
));
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {
return $app['twig']->render('homepage.html.twig');
});
$app->get('/about, function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/contact', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/services', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->run();

18. 18
Adding a Form
●We need to generate the form
●We need to accept the form
●We need to e-mail the form

19. 19
Now we add a form
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
use SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationRequest;
$app = new SilexApplication();
$app->register(new SilexProviderTwigServiceProvider(), array(
'twig.path' => __DIR__.'/views',
));
$app->register(new SilexProviderFormServiceProvider());
$app->register(new SilexProviderTranslationServiceProvider());
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/about, function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/contact', function(Request $request) use ($app) {
$form = $app['form.factory']->createBuilder('form')
->add('name')
->add('email')
->getForm()
;
$form->handleRequest($request);
if($form->isValid()) {
$data = $form->getData();
// Mail it
}
return $app['twig']->render('contact.html.twig', array('form' => $form->createView()));
});
$app->get('/services', function() use ($app) {/*..});
$app->run();

20. 20
HTTP Method Routing

21. 21
Whoops

22. 22
Allow Both Methods
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
use SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationRequest;
$app = new SilexApplication();
$app->register(new SilexProviderTwigServiceProvider(), array(
'twig.path' => __DIR__.'/views',
));
$app->register(new SilexProviderFormServiceProvider());
$app->register(new SilexProviderTranslationServiceProvider());
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/about, function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->match('/contact', function(Request $request) use ($app) {
$form = $app['form.factory']->createBuilder('form')
->add('name')
->add('email')
->getForm()
;
$form->handleRequest($request);
if($form->isValid()) {
$data = $form->getData();
// Mail it
}
return $app['twig']->render('contact.html.twig', array('form' => $form->createView()));
})->method('GET|POST');
$app->get('/services', function() use ($app) {/*..});
$app->run();

23. 23
We've silently introduced a problem into our
code

24. 24
Code Quickly Turns to
Spaghetti
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spaghetti-prepared.jpg

25. 25
Pretend to be a big framework

26. 26
What do we need to do?
● Consistent File Layout
● Separate out functionality
● Make things more testable

27. 27
Clean up our file structure

28. 28
Break up that big file
● File for bootstrapping the app
● File for routes
● File for running the app

29. 29
web/index.php
require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';
$app = new SilexApplication();
require_once __DIR__ . '/../app/bootstrap.php';
require_once __DIR__ . '/../app/routes.php';
$app->run();

30. 30
app/bootstrap.php
$config = include_once 'config/config.php';
$app['config'] = $config;
$app->register(new SilexProviderTwigServiceProvider(), array(
'twig.path' => $app['config']['template_path'],
));
$app->register(new SilexProviderFormServiceProvider());
$app->register(new SilexProviderTranslationServiceProvider());

31. 31
app/routes.php
$app->get('/', function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->get('/about, function() use ($app) {/*...*/});
$app->match('/contact', function(Request $request) use ($app) {
$form = $app['form.factory']->createBuilder('form')
->add('name')
->add('email')
->getForm()
;
$form->handleRequest($request);
if($form->isValid()) {
$data = $form->getData();
// Mail it
}
return $app['twig']->render('contact.html.twig', array('form' => $form->createView()));
})->method('GET|POST');
$app->get('/services', function() use ($app) {/*..});

32. 32
Service Providers

33. 33
For Services
● Implement
SilexServiceProviderInterface
● Implement boot() and
register()

34. 34
For Controllers
● Implement
SilexControllerProviderInterface
● Implement connect()

35. 35
Sample Controller
use SilexApplication;
use SilexControllerProviderInterface;
class BlogController implements ControllerProviderInterface {
public function connect(Application $app) {
$controllers = $app['controllers_factory'];
$controllers->get('/', array($this, 'index'));
$controllers->get('/inline', function() use ($app) {
/* Logic Here */
});
}
protected function index(Application $app) {
/* Logic Here */
}
}
$app->mount('/blog', new BlogController());

36. 36
Controllers as Services
● Ships with Silex
● Allows attaching objects to
routes
● Favors dependency injection
● Framework Agnostic

37. 37
Create our Object
// src/MyApp/Controller/IndexController.php
namespace MyAppController;
use SilexApplication;
use SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationRequest;
class IndexController
{
public function indexAction(Application $app)
{
return $app['twig']->render('Index/index.html.twig');
}
public function aboutAction(Application $app) { /* … */ }
public function servicesAction(Application $app) { /* … */ }
public function contactAction(Application $app) { /* … */ }
}

38. 38
Register Controllers as
Services
$config = include_once 'config/config.php';
$app['config'] = $config;
$app->register(new SilexProviderTwigServiceProvider(), array(
'twig.path' => $app['config']['template_path'],
));
$app->register(new SilexProviderFormServiceProvider());
$app->register(new SilexProviderTranslationServiceProvider());
$app['controller.index'] = $app->share(function() use ($app) {
return new MyAppControllerIndexController();
});

39. 39
Register our routes
$app->get('/', 'controller.index:indexAction')->bind('homepage');
$app->get('/about', 'controller.index:aboutAction')->bind('about');
$app->get('/services', 'controller.index:servicesAction')->bind('services');
$app->match('/contact', 'controller.index:contactAction')->bind('contact')->method('GET|POST');

40. 40
A Little Planning goes a Long Way

41. 41
Questions?

42. 42
Thanks!
● http://joind.in/talk/view/12080
● @dragonmantank
● chris@ctankersley.com