Converting a Symfony2 PHP entity object for use within Javascript

Question

I'm attempting to open up data from a PHP Object (as shown below) but I'd like to be able to access this data within JavaScript to use in a graphing library.

Object in question:

What I need to be able to do is convert that into a JSON encoded object for use within Javascript.

I tried using twig within Symfony to do this via:

{% set playerStats = match.getStatsPlayers().getValues() }%
{% dump(playerStats) %} // This is what you see above

var playerStats = {{ playerStats|json_encode }};

console.log(playerStats);

The console shows this:

Which is where I'm banging my head against the wall. Where can I access the values of these properties?

As an inefficient way, I've managed to get it into a JavaScript object by doing:

{% for p in playerStats %}
    playerStats.push({ 'id': {{p.playerID}}, 'playerName': '{{p.playerName}}', 'playerOutfit': {{p.playerOutfit}}, 'playerFaction': {{p.playerFaction}}, 'playerKills': {{p.playerKills}}, 'playerDeaths': {{p.playerDeaths}}, 'playerTeamKills': {{p.playerTeamKills}}, 'playerSuicides': {{p.playerSuicides}} });
{% endfor %}

I feel kinda dirty for doing that. There must be a better way to do this surely?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can use the Symfony Serializer. http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/serializer.html

You might want to write your own Twig extension to do this from within your template.

Your code will look something like this:

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Serializer;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Encoder\JsonEncoder;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\GetSetMethodNormalizer;

$encoders = array(new JsonEncoder());
$normalizers = array(new GetSetMethodNormalizer());

$serializer = new Serializer($normalizers, $encoders);

$jsonContent = $serializer->serialize($object, 'json');

When you put that string into your javascript, you should have a normal JS object where you can find everything you want.

You might want to use the JMSSerializerBundle, as it already has a Twig extension, and is easier to use in general.

https://github.com/schmittjoh/JMSSerializerBundle/blob/master/Resources/doc/index.rst

---

An update to give a quick overview of what is in the comments.

Both the Symfony Serializer as the JMSSerializerBundle seem to have a hard time coping with Bi-directional relations (most likely Doctrine). This will result in errors like "Out of memory" or something mentioning "Self-referencing" objects / infinite loops.

To solve this, you can ignore the attribute with the Normalizer. Which will look something like:

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Serializer;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Encoder\JsonEncoder;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\GetSetMethodNormalizer;

$normalizer = new GetSetMethodNormalizer();
$normalizer->setIgnoredAttributes(array('match')); //Replace match with the parent attribute
$encoder = new JsonEncoder();

$serializer = new Serializer(array($normalizer), array($encoder));
$serializer->serialize($object, 'json');