Extending Services

Adding Services

You'll probably want to create your own services to modularize certain aspects of your own project. For example, if your application needs to interact with some third-party API like Google Maps, you might create a MapBuilder class that encapsulates all of that functionality. This is a cleaner and more manageable alternative to simply stuffing all of your code directly into your controller classes.

If you want to use a single instance of MapBuilder throughout your application, you'll probably end up defining it as a service. To do this, you'll need to create a new service provider class in your site Sprinkle.

First, create a class src/ServicesProvider/ServicesProvider.php in your Sprinkle:

app
└── sprinkles
    └── site
        └── src
            └── ServicesProvider
                └── ServicesProvider.php

The skeleton of this file should look like:

<?php
/**
 * Owl Fancy (https://owlfancy.com)
 *
 * @license   All rights reserved.
 */
namespace UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\ServicesProvider;

use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Core\Facades\Debug;

/**
 * Registers services for my site Sprinkle
 *
 * @author David Attenborough
 */
class ServicesProvider
{
    /**
     * Register my site services.
     *
     * @param Container $container A DI container implementing ArrayAccess and container-interop.
     */
    public function register($container)
    {

    }
}

Notice that we have one method, register, which takes the Pimple DIC as its lone parameter. Ok, let's add our MapBuilder service!

<?php
/**
 * Owl Fancy (https://owlfancy.com)
 *
 * @license   All rights reserved.
 */
namespace UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\ServicesProvider;

use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Core\Facades\Debug;
use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\GoogleMaps\MapBuilder;

/**
 * Registers services for my site Sprinkle
 *
 * @author David Attenborough
 */
class ServicesProvider
{
    /**
     * Register my site services.
     *
     * @param Container $container A DI container implementing ArrayAccess and container-interop.
     */
    public function register($container)
    {
       /**
         * Map builder service.
         *
         * Needed to find our owls and track down those delicious voles.
         */        
        $container['mapBuilder'] = function ($c) {
            // Do what you need before building the object
            ...

            // Now, actually build the object
            $mapBuilder = new MapBuilder(...);
            return $mapBuilder;
        };
    }
}

You'll notice that we've added use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\GoogleMaps\MapBuilder; to the top of the file. This means that we don't have to use the fully qualified class name (with the entire namespace) every time we want to refer to the MapBuilder class.

Notice that we've defined our closure to return the object that we created. Now, in a controller class, we can do something like:

/**
 * Get the current location of the currently selected owl.
 *
 * Request type: GET
 */
public function getOwlCoordinates($request, $response, $args)
{
    ...

    $mapBuilder = $this->ci->mapBuilder;
    $coordinates = $mapBuilder->getCoordinates($myOwl);

    ...
}

It is very important that your class be named ServicesProvider, and be in the ServicesProvider namespace of your Sprinkle. Otherwise, UserFrosting will be unable to find and automatically register your services!

Extending Existing Services

Pimple also allows us to extend services that were defined previously, for example in another Sprinkle. The view service loads UserFrosting's Twig extensions to expose additional functions, filters, and variables in our templates. If we want to define more global Twig variables in our site Sprinkle, we can create a new Twig extension and then add it to our view service by extending it in our service provider class.

First, create your new Twig extension class in src/Twig/Extension.php:

<?php
/**
 * Owl Fancy (https://owlfancy.com)
 *
 * @license   All rights reserved.
 */
namespace UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\Twig;

use Interop\Container\ContainerInterface;

/**
 * Extends Twig functionality for my site sprinkle.
 *
 * @author David Attenborough
 */
class Extension extends \Twig_Extension
{

    /**
     * @var ContainerInterface The global container object, which holds all your services.
     */
    protected $services;

    /**
     * Constructor.
     *
     * @param ContainerInterface $services The global container object, which holds all your services.
     */
    public function __construct(ContainerInterface $services)
    {
        $this->services = $services;
    }

    /**
     * Get the name of this extension.
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getName()
    {
        return 'userfrosting/site';
    }

    /**
     * Adds Twig global variable `nest`.
     *
     * @return array[mixed]
     */
    public function getGlobals()
    {
        return array(
            'pelletCounter'   => $this->services->mapBuilder->getNest()
        );
    }
}

Now, back in ServicesProvider.php, we can extend the view service to load this extension:

<?php
/**
 * Owl Fancy (https://owlfancy.com)
 *
 * @license   All rights reserved.
 */
namespace UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\ServicesProvider;

use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Core\Facades\Debug;
use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\GoogleMaps\MapBuilder;
use UserFrosting\Sprinkle\Site\Twig\Extension;

/**
 * Registers services for my site Sprinkle
 *
 * @author David Attenborough
 */
class ServicesProvider
{
    /**
     * Register my site services.
     *
     * @param Container $container A DI container implementing ArrayAccess and container-interop.
     */
    public function register($container)
    {
        /**
         * Extends the 'view' service with the SiteExtension for Twig.
         *
         * Adds global variables to Twig for my site Sprinkle.
         */
        $container->extend('view', function ($view, $c) {
            $twig = $view->getEnvironment(); 
            $extension = new Extension($c);
            $twig->addExtension($extension);

            return $view;
        });

        /**
         * Map builder service.
         *
         * Needed to find our owls and track down those delicious voles.
         */        
        $container['mapBuilder'] = function ($c) {
            // Do what you need before building the object
            ...

            // Now, actually build the object
            $mapBuilder = new MapBuilder(...);
            return $mapBuilder;
        };
    }
}

When our Sprinkle is loaded, Pimple will use the callback defined in $container->extend('view', ... to load our extension on top of the view service that was originally defined in the core Sprinkle, as well as any modifications made in other Sprinkles' service providers. This is summarized in the following diagram:

Extending a service multiple times

Overriding Existing Services

Most of the default services that UserFrosting defines can be completely overridden in your Sprinkle, simply by redefining them as if they were a new service. The exception is for system services, which have already been invoked before the SprinkleManager can load the Sprinkles. These services are:

  • eventDispatcher
  • locator
  • sprinkleManager
  • streamBuilder