How to encode Doctrine entities to JSON in Symfony 2 0 AJAX application

Question

I m developing game app and using Symfony 2 0  I have many AJAX requests to the backend  And more responses is converting entity to JSON  For example    class DefaultController extends Controller                  public function launchAction                     user    this- gt getDoctrine                        - gt getRepository  UserBundle User                                        - gt find  id               encode user to json format          userDataAsJson    this- gt encodeUserDataToJson  user           return array               userDataAsJson    gt   userDataAsJson                                   private function encodeUserDataToJson User  user                 userData   array               id    gt   user- gt getId                 profile    gt  array                   nickname    gt   user- gt getProfile  - gt getNickname                                      jsonEncoder   new JsonEncoder                    return  jsonEncoder- gt encode  userData   format    json              And all my controllers do the same thing  get an entity and encode some of its fields to JSON  I know that I can use normalizers and encode all entitities  But what if an entity has cycled links to other entity  Or the entities graph is very big  Do you have any suggestions    I think about some encoding schema for entities    or using NormalizableInterface to avoid cycling

User · Answer

Now you can also use Doctrine ORM Transformations to convert entities to nested arrays of scalars and back

User · Answer

in Symfony 2 3   app config config yml  framework                                                   json  xml               serializer          enabled  true  services      object normalizer          class  Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer GetSetMethodNormalizer         tags                                                                                                         -   name  serializer normalizer     and example for your controller                                                      Route   search    name  orgunitSearch       public function orgunitSearchAction          array    this- gt get  request  - gt query- gt all          entity    this- gt getDoctrine           - gt getRepository  IntranetOrgunitBundle Orgunit           - gt findOneBy  array         serializer    this- gt get  serializer           json    serializer- gt serialize  entity   json         array    serializer- gt normalize  entity        return new JsonResponse   array        but the problems with the field type  DateTime will remain

User · Answer

When you need to create a lot of REST API endpoints on Symfony  the best way is to use following stack of bundles    JMSSerializerBundle for the serialization of Doctrine entities FOSRestBundle bundle for response view listener  Also it can generate definition of routes based on controller action name  NelmioApiDocBundle to auto-generate online documentation and Sandbox which allows to test endpoint without any external tool     When you configure everything properly  you entity code will look like   use Doctrine ORM Mapping as ORM  use JMS Serializer Annotation as JMS           ORM Table name  company       class Company                    var string                ORM Column name  name   type  string   length 255                 JMS Expose           JMS SerializedName  name           JMS Groups   company overview                private  name                   var Campaign                  ORM OneToMany targetEntity  Campaign   mappedBy  company                   JMS Expose           JMS SerializedName  campaigns           JMS Groups   campaign overview                private  campaigns      Then  code in controller   use Nelmio ApiDocBundle Annotation ApiDoc  use FOS RestBundle Controller Annotations View   class CompanyController extends Controller                   Retrieve all companies                View serializerGroups   company overview            ApiDoc                  return Company               public function cgetAction                 return  this- gt getDoctrine  - gt getRepository Company  class - gt findAll              The benefits of such set up are     JMS Expose   annotations in entity can be added to simple fields  and to any types of relations  Also there is possibility to expose result of some method execution  use annotation  JMS VirtualProperty   for that  With serialization groups we can control exposed fields in different situations  Controllers are very simple  Action method can directly return an entity or array of entities  and they will be automatically serialized  And  ApiDoc   allows to test the endpoint directly from browser  without any REST client or JavaScript code

User · Answer

You can automatically encode into Json  your complex entity with   use Symfony Component Serializer Serializer  use Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer GetSetMethodNormalizer  use Symfony Component Serializer Encoder JsonEncoder    serializer   new Serializer array new GetSetMethodNormalizer     array  json    gt  new  JsonEncoder       json    serializer- gt serialize  entity   json

User · Answer

Another option is to use the JMSSerializerBundle  In your controller you then do    serializer    this- gt container- gt get  serializer     reports    serializer- gt serialize  doctrineobject   json    return new Response  reports      should be  reports as  doctrineobject is not serialized   You can configure how the serialization is done by using annotations in the entity class  See the documentation in the link above  For example  here s how you would exclude linked entities          Iddp RorBundle Entity Report      ORM Table      ORM Entity repositoryClass  Iddp RorBundle Entity ReportRepository      ExclusionPolicy  None                  ORM ManyToOne targetEntity  Client   inversedBy  reports      ORM JoinColumn name  client id   referencedColumnName  id      Exclude    protected  client

User · Answer

To complete the answer  Symfony2 comes with a wrapper around json encode  Symfony Component HttpFoundation JsonResponse Typical usage in your Controllers      use Symfony Component HttpFoundation JsonResponse      public function acmeAction         return new JsonResponse  array

User · Answer

If you are using Symfony 2 7 or above  and don t want to include any additional bundle for serializing  maybe you can follow this way to seialize doctrine entities to json -    In my  common  parent  controller  I have a function that prepares the serializer  use Symfony Component Serializer Encoder JsonEncoder  use Symfony Component Serializer Mapping Factory ClassMetadataFactory  use Symfony Component Serializer Mapping Loader AnnotationLoader  use Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer ObjectNormalizer  use Symfony Component Serializer Serializer      -----------------------------          return Serializer     protected function  getSerializer            classMetadataFactory   new ClassMetadataFactory new AnnotationLoader new AnnotationReader           normalizer             new ObjectNormalizer  classMetadataFactory        return new Serializer   normalizer    new JsonEncoder         Then use it to serialize Entities to JSON    this- gt  getSerializer  - gt normalize  anEntity   json     this- gt  getSerializer  - gt normalize  arrayOfEntities   json       Done   But you may need some fine tuning  For example -    If your entities have circular reference  check how to handle it  If you want to ignore some properties  can do it Even better  you can serialize only selective attributes

User · Answer

With php5 4 now you can do    use JsonSerializable          Entity repositoryClass  App Entity User      Table name  user      class MyUserEntity implements JsonSerializable            Column length 50         private  name            Column length 50         private  login       public function jsonSerialize                 return array               name    gt   this- gt name               login   gt   this- gt login                       And then call  json encode MyUserEntity

User · Answer

I found the solution to the problem of serializing entities was as follows    config config yml  services      serializer method          class  Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer GetSetMethodNormalizer     serializer encoder json          class  Symfony Component Serializer Encoder JsonEncoder     serializer          class  Symfony Component Serializer Serializer         arguments              -   serializer method              -  json   serializer encoder json     in my controller    serializer    this- gt get  serializer      entity    this- gt get  doctrine                  - gt getRepository  myBundle Entity                  - gt findOneBy  params      collection    this- gt get  doctrine                  - gt getRepository  myBundle Entity                  - gt findBy  params     toEncode   array       response    gt  array           entity    gt   serializer- gt normalize  entity            entities    gt   serializer- gt normalize  collection             return new Response json encode  toEncode      other example    serializer    this- gt get  serializer      collection    this- gt get  doctrine                  - gt getRepository  myBundle Entity                  - gt findBy  params     json    serializer- gt serialize  collection   json     return new Response  json     you can even configure it to deserialize arrays in http   api symfony com 2 0

User · Answer

I just had to solve the same problem  json-encoding an entity   User   having a One-To-Many Bidirectional Association to another Entity   Location     I tried several things and I think now I found the best acceptable solution  The idea was to use the same code as written by David  but somehow intercept the infinite recursion by telling the Normalizer to stop at some point   I did not want to implement a custom normalizer  as this GetSetMethodNormalizer is a nice approach in my opinion  based on reflection etc    So I ve decided to subclass it  which is not trivial at first sight  because the method to say if to include a property  isGetMethod  is private   But  one could override the normalize method  so I intercepted at this point  by simply unsetting the property that references  Location  - so the inifinite loop is interrupted   In code it looks like this   class GetSetMethodNormalizer extends  Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer GetSetMethodNormalizer        public function normalize  object   format   null                   if the object is a User  unset location for normalization  without touching the original object         if  object instanceof  Leonex MoveBundle Entity User                 object   clone  object               object- gt setLocations new  Doctrine Common Collections ArrayCollection                        return parent  normalize  object   format

User · Answer

I had the same problem and I chosed to create my own encoder  which will cope by themself with recursion    I created classes which implements Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer NormalizerInterface  and a service which holds every NormalizerInterface    This is the NormalizerService  class NormalizerService          normalizer are stored in private properties    private  entityOneNormalizer     private  entityTwoNormalizer      public function getEntityOneNormalizer              Normalizer are created only if needed     if   this- gt entityOneNormalizer    null           this- gt entityOneNormalizer   new EntityOneNormalizer  this     every normalizer keep a reference to this service      return  this- gt entityOneNormalizer             create a function for each normalizer        the serializer service will also serialize the entities       i found it easier  but you don t really need it     public function serialize  objects   format             serializer   new Serializer              array                   this- gt getEntityOneNormalizer                     this- gt getEntityTwoNormalizer                              array  format   gt   encoder           return  serializer- gt serialize  response   format       An example of a Normalizer    use Symfony Component Serializer Normalizer NormalizerInterface   class PlaceNormalizer implements NormalizerInterface    private  normalizerService   public function   construct  normalizerService         this- gt service   normalizerService      public function normalize  object   format   null         entityTwo    object- gt getEntityTwo         entityTwoNormalizer    this- gt service- gt getEntityTwoNormalizer         return array           param    gt  object- gt getParam              repeat for every parameter                this is where the entityOneNormalizer dealt with recursivity          entityTwo    gt   entityTwoNormalizer- gt normalize  entityTwo   format   without any entity one     the  format  parameter is adapted for ignoring entity one - this may be done with different ways  a specific method  etc                 In a controller     normalizerService    this- gt get  normalizer service      you will have to configure services yml  json    normalizerService- gt serialize  myobject   json    return new Response  json     The complete code is here   https   github com progracqteur WikiPedale tree master src Progracqteur WikipedaleBundle Resources Normalizer

User · Answer

This is more an update  for Symfony v 2 7  and JmsSerializer v 0 13   dev   so to avoid that Jms tries to load and serialise the whole object graph   or in case of cyclic relation      Model   use Doctrine ORM Mapping as ORM  use JMS Serializer Annotation ExclusionPolicy    use JMS Serializer Annotation Exclude    use JMS Serializer Annotation MaxDepth      lt     Required           User        ORM Table name  user table                     OTHER Doctrine proprieties                     public class User                   var integer                ORM Column name  id   type  integer           ORM Id         ORM GeneratedValue strategy  AUTO               protected    id                   ORM ManyToOne targetEntity  FooBundle Entity Game           ORM JoinColumn nullable false          MaxDepth 1              protected  game              Other proprieties     and Getters ans setters                                                                   Inside an Action   use JMS Serializer SerializationContext       Necessary include to enbale max depth        users    this               - gt getDoctrine                 - gt getManager                 - gt getRepository  FooBundle User                 - gt findAll        serializer    this- gt container- gt get  jms serializer       jsonContent    serializer                    - gt serialize                           users                            json                            SerializationContext  create                                    - gt enableMaxDepthChecks                           return new Response  jsonContent

[ajax] How to encode Doctrine entities to JSON in Symfony 2.0 AJAX application?

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