Symfony 3 view overloading for controller inheritance

Question

Let's say I have 2 controllers, content and news:

class ContentController extends Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller {
  public function indexAction() {}
}

and

class NewsController extends ContentController {}

If the view for the indexAction does not exist for the news controller (the indexAction is inherited from the parent class), I want Symfony to use the view of the Content controller (indexAction). How can I achieve this? Symfony always tries to render the view News/index.html.php but if this view does not exist I would like that Symfony renders Content/index.html.php.

Is it possible to tell the Symfony render engine something like this: If there exists the file News/index.html.php take this one, otherwise take Content/index.html.php

I'm using the PHP template engine, not twig.

We are currently using the Zend Framework and there you can simply add a script (view) path as described here View overloading in Zend Framework

"No views found" you mean no routes found? And what do you mean with "Scripts path"? — Fabian Schmick
No, I mean views. Eg. no index.html.php view for the NewsController indexAction, but there exists an index.html.php view and action in the ContentController. Script path is where the views are located (eg Resources/views). The views for the NewsController are located under app\Resources\views\News, for the ContentController under app\Resources\views\Content — Sebastian Schmidt
Could you edit your question and add an exmaple action and its route configuration? — Fabian Schmick
I have edited my question. Do you now understand what I would like to achieve? — Sebastian Schmidt
In the most cases one action renders one template and is callable about one route. Could you please edit your question again with the code of the two indexActions you are speaking about? Otherwise you can check if the template exits with file_exists php.net/manual/de/function.file-exists.php? — Fabian Schmick

Fabian Schmick Fabian Schmick · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-23T09:56:03

I hope I understand you correctly and this could fix you problem:

class ContentController extends Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route("/", name="content_index")
     */
    public function indexAction()
    {
        // render Content/index.html.php
    }
}

class NewsController extends ContentController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/news", name="content_news_index")
     */
    public function indexAction()
    {
        parent::indexAction();

        // render News/index.html.php
    }
}

You have to adjust the routes to your needs.

Additional approach as requested in the comments:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

class ContentController extends Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller
{
    /**
     * @Route("/", name="content_index")
     * @Route("/news", name="content_news_index")
     */
    public function indexAction(Request $request)
    {
        $routeName = $request->get('_route');

        if ($routeName === 'content_index') {
            // render Content/index.html.php
        } elseif ($routeName === 'content_news_index') {
            // render News/index.html.php
        }        
    }
}

Symfony 3 view overloading for controller inheritance

1 Answers