Edit Endpoint & Deserialization

Hi Diana E.!

Hmmm. I'm not sure what's going on here, so let's try a few things:

A) Try setting the return value of deserialize() to a value and dump it. Also dump $reference:

$deserializedReference = $serializer->deserialize(
    $request->getContent(), // raw JSON from request
    ArticleReference::class, // type of obj to turn it into
    'json', // data format
    [
        'object_to_populate' => $reference, // by default creates new obj. Instead update passed obj
        'groups' => ['input']
    ]
);
dump($deserializedReference);
dump($reference);

The question: are these objects identical or are these 2 different objects?

B) If they ARE identical, then my guess is that the object_to_populate system IS working... but for some reason, the filename is not being updated. To test this theory, remove the object_to_populate option and dump($deserializedReference);. Is the filename set in this new object or not?

Let me know what you find out!

Cheers!

Thanks for your response Ryan. In A, I do get identical objects:

ArticleReference {#786 ▼
-id: 1
-article: Article {#833 ▶}
-filename: "mg-6694_6124e8eb927da.jpeg"
-originalFilename: "_MG_6694.jpg"
-mimeType: "image/jpeg"
}

ArticleReference {#786 ▼
-id: 1
-article: Article {#833 ▶}
-filename: "mg-6694_6124e8eb927da.jpeg"
-originalFilename: "_MG_6694.jpg"
-mimeType: "image/jpeg"
}

The originalFilename above is the old value, not the updated one.


In B, I get the following error if I remove this line `'object_to_populate' => $reference,`

Cannot create an instance of App\Entity\ArticleReference from serialized data because its constructor requires parameter "article" to be present.

Hey Diana E. !

Hmm. Ok! This tells me that the object_to_populate system IS working: the serializer IS trying to update your existing object.

Ok, so to review, the goal is to be able to send an originalFilename JSON property and have it update the originalFilename property on your entity. There are a few things to check out (you may have checked some of these already, but just in case):

1) Make sure you have a setOriginalFilename() method
2) Make sure that the originalFilename property is in the input serialization group
3) dump($request->getContent()) on your controller to be absolutely sure that this contains a originalFilename field.
4) Add a temporary dump($originalFilename) inside of your setOriginalFilename() method to make sure that this code is being executed.

As a reminder, to see of those dump() lines are being hit, after triggering the AJAX call, you can use this trick to see the profiler (and then the "dump" tab on the profiler) to see what those output: https://symfonycasts.com/screencast/symfony-uploads/dropzone

Let me know what you find out!

Cheers!

Thanks a lot for your help, Ryan. The issue was no. 2 (serialisation group).

Hey @Hamza!

> how can our api send files to our front so we can update them and send them back

Hmm. So this sounds like 2 parts.

First "how can can the API return files that we've already uploaded". The answer to this is no different if you're using React or something else - it's more of a general "API question". I think there are generally 2 approaches:

1) You have an endpoint that returns information about the file (e.g. filename) including one field that is the base64 encoded version of the binary string. This works great for smaller files (base64 encoding makes file sizes a bit bigger).

2) You have an endpoint that returns information about the file (e.g. filename) including one field that is the URL to where the resource could be downloaded, like a URL on your site (e.g. even /uploads/file/foo.jpg) or on a CDN, like cloudfront.

Second "how can we send a new file back to the server"?

We talk about that here: https://symfonycasts.com/sc... - and it shouldn't be any different if you're using React.

Let me know if that helps :).

Cheers!