Skip to content

symfony

Directory actions

More options

Directory actions

More options

Latest commit

 

History

History

symfony

README.md

Server-side Symfony — Handsontable Example

A fully runnable implementation of server-side data management with Symfony and Handsontable.

What it does

A product inventory data grid available in four variants:

REST API (/)

  • Fetches paginated rows from GET /api/products on every page change
  • Sorts and filters rows on the server — the browser never loads the full dataset
  • Creates, updates, and deletes rows via POST, PATCH, and DELETE endpoints

GraphQL API (/graphql.html)

  • All the same operations (fetch, sort, filter, create, update, delete) over a single POST /graphql endpoint
  • Uses named queries and mutations with typed input objects
  • The schema is built with webonyx/graphql-php — no extra bundle required

Angular (/angular.html)

  • Same REST API operations wrapped in an Angular standalone component
  • Uses @handsontable/angular-wrapper (HotTableComponent) with @ViewChild for instance access
  • Built separately with ng build --watch and served through the Vite dev server via a custom middleware plugin

React (/react.html)

  • Same REST API operations wrapped in a React functional component
  • Uses @handsontable/react-wrapper (HotTable) with useRef for instance access and useMemo for stable settings
  • Built separately with vite build --watch and served through the Vite dev server via a custom middleware plugin

Prerequisites

Tool Version
Docker + Docker Compose (v2 plugin or v1 standalone) any recent
Node.js 18+
npm 9+

Quick start

bash setup.sh
# or: make setup

That single command:

  1. Builds a PHP 8.2 / Apache Docker image with a fresh Symfony 7 project
  2. Starts a MySQL 8 container (health-checked before the app starts)
  3. Runs Doctrine migrations and seeds 52 sample products
  4. Installs frontend dependencies (Angular and/or React are pre-built before Vite starts)
  5. Opens http://localhost:5173
URL Description
http://localhost:5173/ REST API (vanilla JS)
http://localhost:5173/graphql.html GraphQL API (vanilla JS)
http://localhost:5173/angular.html Angular
http://localhost:5173/react.html React

Switch between variants using the nav links at the top of each page.

Available commands

make setup    # Full first-time setup (build → migrate → seed → start)
make start    # Start Docker + frontend after the initial setup
make stop     # Stop Docker services
make logs     # Stream Symfony container logs
make clean    # Remove containers, volumes, and node_modules

Project structure

server-side-symfony/
├── setup.sh                     # One-run setup script
├── Makefile                     # Convenience targets
├── docker-compose.yml           # MySQL + Symfony services
│
├── symfony/                     # Symfony backend (Dockerised)
│   ├── Dockerfile               # PHP 8.2 / Apache — runs composer install
│   ├── apache.conf              # VirtualHost with FallbackResource
│   ├── entrypoint.sh            # warmup → migrate → seed → apache2-foreground
│   ├── composer.json            # PHP dependencies (symfony 7 + doctrine + graphql-php)
│   ├── .env                     # Environment defaults (overridden by Docker)
│   ├── bin/console              # Symfony CLI entry point
│   ├── public/index.php         # Front controller
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── Kernel.php
│   │   ├── Controller/
│   │   │   ├── ProductController.php    # REST — parses request, returns JSON
│   │   │   └── GraphQLController.php    # GraphQL — single POST /graphql endpoint
│   │   ├── GraphQL/
│   │   │   └── ProductSchema.php        # Schema definition (types, queries, mutations)
│   │   ├── Repository/ProductRepository.php   # All DB queries (filter/sort/paginate/CRUD)
│   │   ├── Entity/Product.php                 # Doctrine ORM entity
│   │   └── Command/SeedProductsCommand.php    # app:seed-products console command
│   ├── config/
│   │   ├── bundles.php
│   │   ├── routes.yaml                        # Attribute routing for controllers
│   │   ├── services.yaml
│   │   └── packages/
│   │       ├── framework.yaml
│   │       ├── routing.yaml
│   │       ├── cache.yaml
│   │       ├── doctrine.yaml
│   │       └── doctrine_migrations.yaml
│   └── migrations/
│       └── Version20240101000000.php          # Products table schema
│
├── frontend/                    # Vite dev server — entry point for all variants
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── vite.config.js           # Proxies /api and /graphql; serves Angular & React builds via middleware
│   ├── favicon.png
│   ├── index.html               # REST API page
│   ├── graphql.html             # GraphQL API page
│   └── src/
│       ├── main.js              # dataProvider — REST
│       └── graphql.js           # dataProvider — GraphQL
│
├── frontend-angular/            # Angular standalone app (ng build --watch)
│   ├── angular.json             # outputPath.base=dist, baseHref=/angular-assets/
│   ├── package.json
│   └── src/app/
│       ├── app.component.ts     # HotTableComponent + dataProvider logic
│       └── app.component.html   # template with nav + toolbar + <hot-table>
│
└── frontend-react/              # React app (vite build --watch)
    ├── vite.config.ts           # base=/react-assets/, input=react.html
    ├── package.json
    ├── react.html               # HTML entry point
    └── src/
        ├── main.tsx             # createRoot bootstrap
        ├── App.tsx              # HotTable + dataProvider logic (useRef/useMemo)
        └── styles.css

How it works

REST API

Browser (Vite :5173)
   │  GET /api/products?page=1&pageSize=10&sort[prop]=price&sort[order]=asc
   ▼
Vite proxy → Symfony (Docker :8001)
   │  ProductController::index()
   │    filter loop (allowlisted columns, LOWER() for case-insensitive text)
   │    orderBy (allowlisted columns)
   │    setFirstResult/setMaxResults pagination
   ▼
MySQL 8 ← → Doctrine ORM QueryBuilder
   │
   ▼
{ data: [...10 rows...], total: 52 }
   │
   ▼
Handsontable dataProvider → renders page 1, shows pagination bar

GraphQL API

Browser (Vite :5173)
   │  POST /graphql  { query: "query FetchProducts(...) { ... }", variables: { ... } }
   ▼
Vite proxy → Symfony (Docker :8001)
   │  GraphQLController::__invoke()
   │    ProductSchema::build() — builds schema on each request (stateless)
   │    GraphQL::executeQuery()
   │      → Query.products  → ProductRepository::findPage()
   │      → Mutation.createProducts / updateProducts / deleteProducts
   ▼
MySQL 8 ← → Doctrine ORM QueryBuilder
   │
   ▼
{ data: { products: { data: [...], total: 52 } } }
   │
   ▼
Handsontable dataProvider → renders page 1, shows pagination bar

Frontend

REST (src/main.js) — buildUrl() serialises fetchRows parameters into bracket-notation query params that Symfony parses automatically with $request->query->all():

filters[0][prop]=price&filters[0][condition]=gt&filters[0][value]=100

GraphQL (src/graphql.js) — gql() sends every operation as POST /graphql with a JSON body { query, variables }. Named queries and mutations keep the JS readable:

const FETCH_PRODUCTS = `
  query FetchProducts($page: Int, $pageSize: Int, $sort: SortInput, $filters: [FilterInput!]) {
    products(page: $page, pageSize: $pageSize, sort: $sort, filters: $filters) {
      data { id name sku category price stock sort_order }
      total
    }
  }
`;

The Vite proxy forwards /api/* and exactly /graphql to http://localhost:8001, so no CORS configuration is required.

Backend

REST (ProductController.php)

HTTP method Handsontable callback Controller action Repository method
GET fetchRows parse query params, serialize findPage()
POST onRowsCreate parse body createBlankRows()
PATCH onRowsUpdate parse body updateRows()
DELETE onRowsRemove parse body deleteByIds()

GraphQL (GraphQLController.php + ProductSchema.php)

Operation GraphQL field Zwraca Repository method
Query products(page, pageSize, sort, filters) ProductsPage! findPage()
Mutation createProducts(rowsAmount, position, referenceRowId) [Product!]! createBlankRows()
Mutation updateProducts(rows: [ProductUpdateInput!]!) Boolean! updateRows()
Mutation deleteProducts(ids: [Int!]!) Boolean! deleteByIds()

GraphQLController is an invokable controller (__invoke) with a single #[Route('/graphql', methods: ['POST'])] attribute. It builds the schema, executes the query, and returns the result as JSON. Debug information (stack traces) is included automatically when APP_ENV=dev.

ProductSchema defines all types (Product, ProductsPage, SortInput, FilterInput, ProductUpdateInput) and wires resolvers directly to ProductRepository methods. The same repository is reused by both the REST and GraphQL controllers — no logic is duplicated.

Doctrine ORM (Product.php)

The Product entity uses PHP 8 attributes for mapping. Doctrine stores price as DECIMAL(10,2) and the controller casts it to float in the JSON response to match what Handsontable expects.

Migrations (migrations/Version20240101000000.php)

A single Doctrine migration creates the products table. The entrypoint.sh runs doctrine:migrations:migrate on every container start — it's idempotent because Doctrine tracks applied versions in the doctrine_migration_versions table.

Seeder (SeedProductsCommand.php)

The app:seed-products console command inserts 52 sample products. It checks COUNT(*) first and skips if the table already has rows, making it safe to re-run.

Stopping the example

Press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop the Vite dev server, then run:

make stop
# or: docker compose down

Key differences from the Laravel example

Laravel Symfony
ORM Eloquent Doctrine ORM
Query builder Product::query() createQueryBuilder('p')
Routing routes/api.php PHP attributes (#[Route])
Migrations php artisan migrate doctrine:migrations:migrate
Seeding php artisan db:seed php bin/console app:seed-products
Apache routing .htaccess mod_rewrite FallbackResource /index.php
CSRF X-CSRF-TOKEN header Not required for stateless API routes
GraphQL — webonyx/graphql-php via GraphQLController