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Serialization Groups

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If the only way to control the input and output of our API was by controlling the getters and setters on our entity, it wouldn't be that flexible... and could be a bit dangerous. You might add a new getter or setter method for something internal and not realize that you were exposing new data in your API!

The solution for this - and the way that I recommend doing things in all cases - is to use serialization groups.

Adding a Group for Normalization

In the annotation, add normalizationContext. Remember, normalization is when you're going from your object to an array. So this option is related to when you are reading data from your API. Context is basically "options" that you pass to that process. The most common option by far is called "groups", which you set to another array. Add one string here: cheese_listing:read.

125 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 8
/**
* @ApiResource(
... lines 11 - 16
* normalizationContext={"groups"={"cheese_listing:read"}}
* )
... line 19
*/
class CheeseListing
... lines 22 - 125

Thanks to this, when an object is being serialized, the serializer will only include fields that are in this cheese_listing:read group, because, in a second, we're going to start adding groups to each property.

But right now, we haven't added any groups to anything. And so, if you go over and try your get collection operation... oh! Ah! A huge error!

Debugging Errors

Let's... pretend like I did that on purpose and see how to debug it! The problem is that the giant HTML error is... a bit hard to read. One way to see the error is to use our trick from earlier: go to https://localhost:8000/_profiler/.

Woh! Ok, there are two types of errors: runtime errors, where something went wrong specific to that request, and build errors, where some invalid configuration is killing every page. Most of the time, if you see an exception, there is still a profiler you can find for that request by using the trick of going to this URL, finding that request in the list - usually right on top - and clicking the sha into its profiler. Once you're there, you can click an "Exception" tab on the left to see the big, beautiful normal exception.

If you get a build error that kills every page, it's even easier: you'll see it when trying to access anything.

Anyways, the problem here is with my annotation syntax. I do this a lot - which is no big deal as long as you know how to debug the error. And, yep! I forgot a comma at the end.

Adding Groups to Fields

Refresh again! The profiler works, so now we can go back over and hit execute again. Check it out - we have @id and @type from JSON-LD... but it doesn't contain any real fields because none of them are in the new cheese_listing:read group!

Copy the cheese_listing:read group name. To add fields to this, above title, use @Groups(), {""} and paste. Let's also put that above description... and price.

129 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 7
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Annotation\Groups;
... lines 9 - 21
class CheeseListing
{
... lines 24 - 30
/**
... line 32
* @Groups({"cheese_listing:read"})
*/
private $title;
... line 36
/**
... line 38
* @Groups({"cheese_listing:read"})
*/
private $description;
... line 42
/**
... lines 44 - 46
* @Groups({"cheese_listing:read"})
*/
private $price;
... lines 50 - 127
}

Flip back over and try it again. Beautiful! We get those three exact fields. I love this control.

By the way - the name cheese_listing:read... I just made that up - you could use anything. But, I will be following a group naming convention that I recommend. It'll give you flexibility, but keep things organized.

Adding Denormalization Groups

Now we can do the same thing with the input data. Copy normalizationContext, paste, and add de in front to make denormalizationContext. This time, use the group: cheese_listing:write

130 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 9
/**
* @ApiResource(
... lines 12 - 18
* denormalizationContext={"groups"={"cheese_listing:write"}}
* )
... line 21
*/
... lines 23 - 130

Copy that and... let's see... just add this to title and price for now. We actually don't want to add it to description. Instead, we'll talk about how to add this group to the fake textDescription in a minute.

130 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 22
class CheeseListing
{
... lines 25 - 31
/**
... line 33
* @Groups({"cheese_listing:read", "cheese_listing:write"})
*/
private $title;
... lines 37 - 43
/**
... lines 45 - 47
* @Groups({"cheese_listing:read", "cheese_listing:write"})
*/
private $price;
... lines 51 - 128
}

Move over and refresh again. Open up the POST endpoint.... yea - the only fields we can pass now are title and price!

So normalizationContext and denormalizationContext are two totally separate configs for the two directions: reading our data - normalization - and writing our data - denormalization.

The Open API Read & Write Models

At the bottom of the docs, you'll also notice that we now have two models: the read model - that's the normalization context with title, description and price, and the write model with title and price.

And, it's not really important, but you can control these names if you want. Add another option: swagger_definition_name set to "Read". And then the same thing below... set to Write.

130 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 9
/**
* @ApiResource(
... lines 12 - 17
* normalizationContext={"groups"={"cheese_listing:read"}, "swagger_definition_name"="Read"},
* denormalizationContext={"groups"={"cheese_listing:write"}, "swagger_definition_name"="Write"}
* )
... line 21
*/
... lines 23 - 130

I don't normally care about this, but if you want to control it, you can.

Adding Groups to Fake Fields

But, we're missing some fields! When we read the data, we get back title, description and price. But what about our createdAt field or our custom createdAtAgo field?

Let's pretend that we only want to expose createdAtAgo. No problem! Just add the @Groups annotation to that property... oh wait... there is no createdAtAgo property. Ah, it's just as easy: find the getter and put the annotation there: @Groups({"cheese_listing:read"}). And while we're here, I'll add some documentation to that method:

How long ago in text that this cheese listing was added.

135 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 22
class CheeseListing
{
... lines 25 - 112
/**
* How long ago in text that this cheese listing was added.
*
* @Groups("cheese_listing:read")
*/
public function getCreatedAtAgo(): string
... lines 119 - 133
}

Let's try it! Refresh the docs. Down in the models section... nice! There's our new createdAtAgo readonly field. And that documentation we added shows up here. Nice! No surprise that when we try it... the field shows up.

For denormalization - for sending data - we need to re-add our fake textDescription field. Search for the setTextDescription() method. To prevent API clients from sending us the description field directly, we removed the setDescription() method. Above setTextDescription(), add @Groups({"cheese_listing:write"}). And again, let's give this some extra docs.

140 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 88
/**
* The description of the cheese as raw text.
*
* @Groups("cheese_listing:write")
*/
public function setTextDescription(string $description): self
... lines 95 - 140

This time, when we refresh the docs, you can see it on the write model and, of course, on the data that we can send to the POST operation.

Have Whatever Getters and Setters You Want

And... this leads us to some great news! If we decide that something internally in our app does need to set the description property directly, it's now perfectly ok to re-add the original setDescription() method. That won't become part of our API.

147 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 88
public function setDescription(string $description): self
{
$this->description = $description;
return $this;
}
... lines 95 - 147

Default isPublished Value

Let's try all of this out. Refresh the docs page. Let's create a new listing: Delicious chèvre - excuse my French - for $25 and a description with some line breaks. Execute!

Woh! A 500 error! I could go look at this exception in the profiler, but this one is pretty easy to read: an exception in our query: is_published cannot be null. Oh, that makes sense: the user isn't sending is_published... so nobody is setting it. And it's set to not null in the database. No worries: default the property to false.

147 lines src/Entity/CheeseListing.php
... lines 1 - 22
class CheeseListing
{
... lines 25 - 59
private $isPublished = false;
... lines 61 - 145
}

Tip

Actually, the auto-validation was not enabled by default in Symfony 4.3, but may be in Symfony 4.4.

By the way, if you're using Symfony 4.3, instead of a Doctrine error, you may have gotten a validation error. That's due to a new feature where Doctrine database constraints can automatically be used to add validation. So, if you see a validation error, awesome!

Anyways, try to execute it again. It works! We have exactly the input fields and output fields that we want. The isPublished field isn't exposed at all in our API, but it is being set in the background.

Next, let's learn a few more serialization tricks - like how to control the field name and how to handle constructor arguments.

Leave a comment!

This tutorial works great for Symfony 5 and API Platform 2.5/2.6.
Symfony 4 API Platform 2.4

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

// composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "php": "^7.1.3",
        "ext-ctype": "*",
        "ext-iconv": "*",
        "api-platform/core": "^2.1", // v2.4.3
        "composer/package-versions-deprecated": "^1.11", // 1.11.99
        "doctrine/annotations": "^1.0", // 1.10.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-bundle": "^1.6", // 1.11.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle": "^2.0", // v2.0.0
        "doctrine/orm": "^2.4.5", // v2.7.2
        "nelmio/cors-bundle": "^1.5", // 1.5.5
        "nesbot/carbon": "^2.17", // 2.19.2
        "phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock": "^3.0 || ^4.0", // 4.3.1
        "symfony/asset": "4.2.*|4.3.*|4.4.*", // v4.3.11
        "symfony/console": "4.2.*", // v4.2.12
        "symfony/dotenv": "4.2.*", // v4.2.12
        "symfony/expression-language": "4.2.*|4.3.*|4.4.*", // v4.3.11
        "symfony/flex": "^1.1", // v1.17.6
        "symfony/framework-bundle": "4.2.*", // v4.2.12
        "symfony/security-bundle": "4.2.*|4.3.*", // v4.3.3
        "symfony/twig-bundle": "4.2.*|4.3.*", // v4.2.12
        "symfony/validator": "4.2.*|4.3.*", // v4.3.11
        "symfony/yaml": "4.2.*" // v4.2.12
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "symfony/maker-bundle": "^1.11", // v1.11.6
        "symfony/stopwatch": "4.2.*|4.3.*", // v4.2.9
        "symfony/web-profiler-bundle": "4.2.*|4.3.*" // v4.2.9
    }
}
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