Symfony Lab 2: code first

Edit the connection string in the .env file.

If you are using the department's database, it will look like this:

DATABASE_URL=mysql://user:password@info-titania:3306/shows

First, we will create a user entity, using the make:user command:

symfony console make:user

Keep the default answers. Look at the generated code in Entity/User.php. You can now create the schema in the database, using the doctrine:schema:create command:

symfony console doctrine:schema:create

Look at the result in the database.

We will now create form-based authentication:

symfony console make:auth

Answer "1" to the first question (Login form authenticator), and let the generator run.

We will need to create a first user. To do so, we can use:

symfony console make:registration

Do not send e-mails to confirm registration. Go to the /register page, then to /login and /logout to test everything!

We will now let users provide their name when registering. The "name" field does not exist in the database. But don't touch it!

We will use Symfony's Swiss army knife: make:entity, to modify the user entity and add a name to it.

symfony console make:entity

Give it the string type, with a length of 255, not nullable. The entity is now up to date: look at src/Entity/User.php and its changes.

However, the database has not changed. To update it, you can use the doctrine:schema:update command. To do so, first look at the output of:

symfony console doctrine:schema:update --dump-sql

This command produces the SQL code that updates the database (in this case ALTER ...). You can force the execution of this code:

symfony console doctrine:schema:update --force

And check that the field now appears in the database.

So that the user provides their name, edit RegistrationFormType.php, and possibly register.html.twig.

We will now ask for the user's country when registering. However, it will not be a text field, but an association in the database.

First, let's create the Country entity using make:entity. This entity will simply have a name.

Then, you will need to add a country field referring to a country in User. To do so, use make:entity again, add the country field to the User entity, and specify that its type is ManyToOne, referring to the Country entity.

Update the database (using the doctrine:schema:update --force command). Look at the result in the database.

Then, let's create an automatic controller for Country, using make:crud, and go to /country/ to create a few countries.

You can look at the code generated by make:crud in src/Controller/CountryController.php and templates/country/*.

As in the previous part, add the field to the user registration form. Notice the following error:

when trying to load the /register page. The reason is that Symfony tries to render the country selection field as a select, and does not know how to display a Country. To fix this, override the __toString() method in Country.

Register with this form and look at what happens in the database.

On a page, the home page for example, display the logged-in user's name and country.

We will let users write messages, which will appear in reverse chronological order once logged in, while keeping track of who sent them.

Create a Message entity, which has (none of the fields is optional):

• body, the message body, of type text
• creation_date, the creation date, of type datetime
• user, the user who posted the message, of type ManyToOne to User.

Update the database and generate a CRUD for messages.

• Messages appear in reverse chronological order (according to creation_date)

• Instead of choosing the user posting the message from a drop-down menu, the current user is used

• The current date is also used when the message is created.

Finally, we will add "categories" to messages. A message can be associated with several categories (high-tech, sport, hobbies, general...).

First, create the Category entity using make:entity, which will only have a name.

Create a ManyToMany association between Message and Category.

Modify the message creation form so that categories can be chosen. Here are a few remarks/hints:

• In the form, you can leave the field type as null to let Symfony guess it
• Checkboxes are more user-friendly than a drop-down menu allowing multiple selections. To get them, you can use the expanded option on the field.
• You will also need a __toString() function in Category

Display the categories in which messages were posted when viewing them.