Central Method for Creating all API Responses¶

Instead, let’s go to BaseController, the parent class of ProgrammerController. Let’s create a couple of new functions. First, back in ProgrammerController, cut the serialize function, move it into the BaseController and change it to be protected:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function serialize($data, $format = 'json')
{
    return $this->container['serializer']->serialize($data, $format);
}

Now, when we have multiple controllers in the future, we can just re-use this method to serialize other resources, like Battles.

Second, create a new function called createApiResponse with 2 arguments: the data and the status code. The data could be a Programmer a Battle or anything else. Then we’ll let it call the serialize function. And finally, create the Response and make sure the Content-Type header is set perfectly:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function createApiResponse($data, $statusCode = 200)
{
    $json = $this->serialize($data);

    return new Response($json, $statusCode, array(
        'Content-Type' => 'application/json'
    ));
}

Back in ProgrammerController, we can simplify a lot of things. Let’s search for new Response, because we can replace these. In newAction we can say $response = $this->createApiResponse() and pass it the $programmer object and the 201 status code. And we can still add any other headers we need:

src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/Api/ProgrammerController.php
// ...

public function newAction(Request $request)
{
    $programmer = new Programmer();
    // ...

    $response = $this->createApiResponse($programmer, 201);

    $programmerUrl = $this->generateUrl(
        'api_programmers_show',
        ['nickname' => $programmer->nickname]
    );
    $response->headers->set('Location', $programmerUrl);

    return $response;
}

I’ll copy this code and change the other spots in this controller. The deleteAction returns a 204, which is the blank response. So there’s no need to use this fancy serialization stuff here.

Now let’s try the tests again, so we can make sure we see just that same one failure:

php vendor/bin/behat

And we do!

To Serialize or Not Serialize Null Values?¶

This failure is caused by something specific to the serializer. In this test, the programmer doesn’t actually have a tagLine - we could see this if we looked in the database:

# features/api/programmer.feature
# ...

Scenario: GET one programmer
  Given the following programmers exist:
    | nickname   | avatarNumber |
    | UnitTester | 3            |
  When I request "GET /api/programmers/UnitTester"
  Then the response status code should be 200
  And the following properties should exist:
    """
    nickname
    avatarNumber
    powerLevel
    tagLine
    """
  And the "nickname" property should equal "UnitTester"

When the serializer sees null values, it has 2 options: return the property with a null value, or omit the property entirely. By default, the serializer actually omits null properties. We’ll fix this, because I like always having the same fields on a response, even if some of the data is empty.

Go back to the serialize function. To configure the serializer, create a SerializationContext object. Next, call setSerializeNull and pass true. Now, pass this context as the 3rd argument to serialize:

// src/KnpU/CodeBattle/Controller/BaseController.php
// ...

protected function serialize($data, $format = 'json')
{
    $context = new SerializationContext();
    $context->setSerializeNull(true);

    return $this->container['serializer']->serialize($data, $format, $context);
}

There’s not a lot you can customize in this way, but serializeNull happens to be one of them.

Back to the tests!

php vendor/bin/behat

Boom, everything passes! We’ve changed to use the serializer, and it’s now taking care of all of the heavy-lifting for us. This will be really powerful as we serialize more and more objects.