Symfony2-How to use access a service from outside of a controller

Question

In my Symfony2 controller, this works fine:

$uploadManager = $this->get('upload.upload_manager');

but when I move it to a custom Listener:

use Doctrine\ORM\Event\LifecycleEventArgs;
use Acme\UploadBundle\Upload\UploadManager;

class PersonChange
{
    public function postRemove(LifecycleEventArgs $args)
    {
        $entity = $args->getEntity();
        $entityManager = $args->getEntityManager();

        $uploadManager = $this->get('ep_upload.upload_manager');
        echo "the upload dir is " . $uploadManager->getUploadDir();
    }
}

I get an error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method Acme\MainBundle\Listener\PersonChange::get() in /home/frank/...

I know I must need a use statement but don't know what to use.

This should provide a possible solution: [How do I get services dependencies in a custom class](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8622382/how-do-i-get-services-dependencies-in-a-custom-class) — kufi, Jan 06 '12 at 12:54

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 07 '16 at 16:03

16

Update: Defining controllers as services is no longer officially recommended in Symfony.

The get() method in the Controller class is just a helper method to get services from the container, and it was meant to get new Symfony2 developers up to speed faster. ~~Once people get comfortable with the framework and dependency injection, it's recommended to define controllers as services and inject each required service explicitly.~~

Since your PersonChange class is not a controller and doesn't extend the Controller class, you don't have that get() helper method. Instead, you need to define your class as a service and inject needed services explicitly. Read the Service Container chapter for details.

edited Sep 07 '16 at 16:03

Henry A.

391
2
19

answered Jan 06 '12 at 13:49

Elnur Abdurrakhimov

44,533
10
148
133

Literally the first sentence: Defining controllers as services is **not officially recommended** by Symfony. – Henry A. Sep 06 '16 at 14:23
4 years have passed since my answer. Best practices evolve. – Elnur Abdurrakhimov Sep 06 '16 at 20:51
Yes, but this answer is still easily found when Googling. It should be updated to be inline with current Symfony practices. – Henry A. Sep 07 '16 at 12:23
So what IS the recommended way to do it anno 2016? – G_V Nov 17 '16 at 15:27

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 06 '12 at 19:41

As I ran into the exact same problem maybe I can help

What Elnur said is perfectly fine and I'll just try to pop up a real life example.

In my case I wanted to access

$lucenemanager = $this->get('ivory.lucene.manager')

Even by extending the controller I couldn't get it to work while the controller does access the container (I still did not understand why)

In config.yml my listener (searchindexer.listener) is declared as follow :

   services:
    searchindexer.listener:
        class: ripr\WfBundle\Listener\SearchIndexer
        arguments:
              luceneSearch: "@ivory_lucene_search"
        tags:
            - { name: doctrine.event_listener, event: postPersist }

A service (ivory.lucene.search) is passed as argument in my service/listener.

Then in my class

protected $lucenemanager;

        public function __construct($luceneSearch)
        {
            $this->lucenemanager = $luceneSearch;
        }

Then you can use the get method against $this

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 01 '14 at 21:39

8

An approach that always works, despite not being the best practice in OO

global $kernel;
$assetsManager = $kernel->getContainer()->get('acme_assets.assets_manager');‏

answered Apr 01 '14 at 21:39

Guilherme Viebig

6,901
3
28
30

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 18 '16 at 00:34

If you need to access a Service, define it in the class constructor:

class PersonChange{
    protected $uploadManager;
    public function __construct(UploadManager $uploadManager){
        $this->uploadManager = $uploadManager;
    }
    // Now you can use $this->uploadManager.
}

Now you can pass the Service as argument when calling the class (example 1) or define the clas itself as a Service (recommended, example 2)

Example 1:

use Acme\PersonChange;
class appController{
    function buzzAction(){
        $uploadManager = $this->get('upload.upload_manager');
        $personChange = new PersonChange($uploadManager);

Example 2 (better):

Define PersonChange as a Service itself, and define the other Service as an argument in services.yml file:

 # app/config/services.yml
services:
    upload.upload_manager:
        class:     AppBundle\uploadManager

    PersonChange:
        class:     AppBundle\PersonChange
        arguments: ['@upload.upload_manager']

In this way, you don't have to bother with the upload_manager service in the Controller, since it's implicitely passed as an argument for the constructor, so your Controller can be:

class appController{
    function buzzAction(){
        $personChange = $this->get('PersonChange');

Symfony2-How to use access a service from outside of a controller

4 Answers4

Linked