Extending / Intermediate / Services & Service Providers

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When creating extensions that provide anything more than very simple functionality, it is a good idea to break that functionality out into services.

Each service should have responsibility over a single part of the functionality provided by the extension, and that responsibility should be contained to the class. This is known in computer science as the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP).

It is good practice to aim to have an extension's services narrowly aligned with this principle.

Registering Services¶

When you have a small number of classes to register as services, and your extension is extending SimpleExtension, you can use the registerServices() function to register your extension's services with the application, e.g.:

namespace Bolt\Extension\DropBear\KoalaCatcher;

use Bolt\Extension\SimpleExtension;
use Silex\Application;

/**
 * An extension for catching koalas.
 *
 * @author Kenny Koala <kenny@dropbear.com.au>
 */
class KoalaCatcherExtension extends SimpleExtension
{
    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    protected function registerServices(Application $app)
    {
        $app['koala'] = $app->share(
           function ($app) {
               return new Koala($this->getConfig(), $app['drop.bear']);
           }
        );
    }
}

Extending the 'Global Twig' environment¶

The same can be used to extend the global Twig environment. This can be useful for exposing certain global variables in Twig. For example, if you want to make certain configuration settings from your extension available in the templates, you can use the following:

    public function registerServices(Application $app)
    {
        $app['twig'] = $app->share($app->extend(
            'twig',
            function ($twig) use ($app) {
                $config = $this->getConfig();
                $twig->addGlobal('extensionsetting_foo', $config['foo']);
                return $twig;
            }
        ));
    }

After doing this, you can use {{ extensionsetting_foo }} in your Twig templates.

Creating Service Providers¶

When adding several services in more complex extensions, you will probably want to create a service provider to register your services.

In this case you can use the getServiceProviders() function to return an array of class objects that implement Silex\ServiceProviderInterface.

namespace Bolt\Extension\DropBear\KoalaCatcher;

use Bolt\Extension\DropBear\KoalaCatcher\Provider;
use Bolt\Extension\SimpleExtension;
use Silex\Application;

/**
 * An extension for catching koalas.
 *
 * @author Kenny Koala <kenny@dropbear.com.au>
 */
class KoalaCatcherExtension extends SimpleExtension
{
    public function getServiceProviders()
    {
        return [ 
            $this,
            new Provider\KoalaServiceProvider($this->getConfig()),
        ];
    }
}

The service provider class src/Provider/KoalaServiceProvider.php would then look something like:

namespace Bolt\Extension\DropBear\KoalaCatcher\Provider;

use Silex\Application;
use Silex\ServiceProviderInterface;

/**
 * Koala service provider.
 *
 * @author Kenny Koala <kenny@dropbear.com.au>
 */
class KoalaServiceProvider implements ServiceProviderInterface
{
    /** @var array */
    private $config;

    /**
     * Constructor.
     *
     * @param array $config
     */
    public function __construct(array $config)
    {
        $this->config = $config;
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function register(Application $app)
    {
        $app['koala'] = $app->share(
           function ($app) {
               return new Koala($this->config, $app['drop.bear']);
           }
        );
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function boot(Application $app)
    {
    }
}