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25.

Context Builder: Dynamic Fields/Groups

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Here's the goal: add logic to our new context builder so that, if the currently- authenticated user has ROLE_ADMIN, an extra admin:output group is always added during normalization.

Delete the existing code... though it's pretty close to what we're going to do. Then say $isAdmin =. When we copied this class, in addition to the "decorated" context builder, it came with a second argument: AuthorizationCheckerInterface. This is a service that allows us to check whether or not a user has a role.

But wait... when we needed to do that in our voter, we autowired a different service via the Security type-hint. Well... these are both ways to do the exact same thing: use whichever you like. Yep, we can say $isAdmin = $this->authorizationChecker->isGranted('ROLE_ADMIN'). Then, if $context['groups'] and $isAdmin... we should add the extra group!

33 lines | src/Serializer/AdminGroupsContextBuilder.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
final class AdminGroupsContextBuilder implements SerializerContextBuilderInterface
{
// ... lines 11 - 19
public function createFromRequest(Request $request, bool $normalization, ?array $extractedAttributes = null): array
{
// ... lines 22 - 23
$isAdmin = $this->authorizationChecker->isGranted('ROLE_ADMIN');
if (isset($context['groups']) && $isAdmin) {
// ... line 27
}
// ... lines 29 - 30
}
}

But... why am I checking if $context['groups']? Well, first, I should probably be checking if isset($context['groups']). And second... it doesn't really matter for us. In theory, if you had a resource with no groups configured, it would mean the serializer should serialize all fields. In that situation, we wouldn't want to add the admin:output group because it would actually cause less fields to be serialized. But because I like to always specify normalization and denormalization groups, this isn't a real situation: $context['groups'] will always have something in it at this point.

Add the new group with $context['groups'][] = 'admin:read'. Right? Well, it's not that simple. This createFromRequest() method is called both when the object is being serialized to JSON - so when it's being "normalized" - and when the JSON is being deserialized to the object - when it's being "denormalized". That's what this normalization flag here is telling us.

Cool! We can say, if the object is being normalized, add admin:read, else, add admin:write.

33 lines | src/Serializer/AdminGroupsContextBuilder.php
// ... lines 1 - 19
public function createFromRequest(Request $request, bool $normalization, ?array $extractedAttributes = null): array
{
// ... lines 22 - 25
if (isset($context['groups']) && $isAdmin) {
$context['groups'][] = $normalization ? 'admin:read' : 'admin:write';
}
// ... lines 29 - 30
}
// ... lines 32 - 33

We're done! I'll even remove this $resourceClass thing. That tells us the class of the object that's being serialized or deserialized... which we don't need because we're adding these groups to every resource.

Side Note: You can Decorate Multiple Times

Side note: we've only created one context builder so far, but it's legal to create as many as you want. In the last chapter, I talked about how our new service "decorates" and "replaces" the core context builder. But you could repeat this 3 times - each time "decorating" that same core service. You can do this because Symfony is smart: it will create 3 layers of decoration. This $decorated property might be the "core" service... or it could just be the next decorated service... which itself would call the next, until the core one is eventually called.

If that didn't make sense, don't sweat it. My point is: if you want to control the context in multiple ways, you could smash all that logic into one context builder or create several. The service config for each will look identical to the one we created.

Let's head over and run our tests:

php bin/phpunit --filter=testGetUser

This time... it passes! That test proves that a normal user will not get the phoneNumber field.... but as soon as we give that user ROLE_ADMIN and make another request, phoneNumber is returned! Mission accomplished!

Making "roles" Writeable by only an Admin

And now we can fix the huge security problem I created a few minutes ago: instead of allowing anyone to set the $roles property on User, only admin users should be able to do this.

Before we make that change, let's tweak our test to check for this. In testUpdateUser, let's also try to pass a roles field set to ROLE_ADMIN. Because we're not logged in as an admin user, once we've finished our work, the roles field should simply be ignored. It won't cause a validation error... it just won't be processed at all.

79 lines | tests/Functional/UserResourceTest.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
class UserResourceTest extends CustomApiTestCase
{
// ... lines 11 - 28
public function testUpdateUser()
{
// ... lines 31 - 33
$client->request('PUT', '/api/users/'.$user->getId(), [
'json' => [
// ... line 36
'roles' => ['ROLE_ADMIN'] // will be ignored
]
]);
// ... lines 40 - 48
}
// ... lines 50 - 78
}

To make sure it's ignored, at the bottom, say $em = $this->getEntityManager() and then query for a fresh user from the database: $user = $em->getRepository(User:class)->find($user->getId()). I'll put some PHPDoc above this to tell PhpStorm that this will be a User object. Finish with $this->assertEquals() that we expect ['ROLE_USER'] to be returned from $user->getRoles().

79 lines | tests/Functional/UserResourceTest.php
// ... lines 1 - 28
public function testUpdateUser()
{
// ... lines 31 - 44
$em = $this->getEntityManager();
/** @var User $user */
$user = $em->getRepository(User::class)->find($user->getId());
$this->assertEquals(['ROLE_USER'], $user->getRoles());
}
// ... lines 50 - 79

Why ROLE_USER? Because even if the roles property is empty in the database... the getRoles() method always returns at least ROLE_USER.

Let's make sure this fails. Copy testUpdateUser and run that test:

php bin/phpunit --filter=testUpdateUser

It... yes - fails! Our API does let us write to the roles property. How do we fix this? You probably already know... and it's gorgeously simple. Change the group to admin:write.

241 lines | src/Entity/User.php
// ... lines 1 - 39
class User implements UserInterface
{
// ... lines 42 - 56
/**
// ... line 58
* @Groups({"admin:write"})
*/
private $roles = [];
// ... lines 62 - 239
}

Run the test again:

php bin/phpunit --filter=testUpdateUser

This time... it passes! Context builders are awesome.

Context Builders & Documentation

Though... they do have one downside: the dynamic groups are not reflected anywhere in the documentation. Refresh the docs... then open the GET operation for a single User. The docs say that this will return a User model with email, username and cheeseListings fields. It does not say that phoneNumber will be returned. And even if we logged in as an admin user, this won't change - there would still be no mention of phoneNumber. The docs are static. If an admin user makes this request, that JSON will contain a phoneNumber field, but it won't say that in the docs.

Next, we're going to do a crazy experiment. Because we're following tight naming conventions for our groups - like cheese_listing:output, cheese_listing:input and even operation-specific groups like cheese_listing:item:get, could we use a context builder to automatically set these groups... so we don't need to manually manage them via annotations? The answer is... yes. But things get really interesting if you want your docs to reflect this.