Symfony 4 API Rest PUT : Map data to database entity

Question

I'm a begginer in Symfony 4 and I'm developing an API Rest. I want to create a PUT resource that can handle many update cases.

In my case, I have a user with many properties but I will take an example with 3 properties to keep things simple :

User {
    username,
    email,
    password
}

My PUT resource can be called in order to update Username, update Email or update Password. For example, to update Username, the user of my API will send a PUT request with only username :

{
    username: "New username"
}

Same for email and password, he will only send the property he wants to change.

My problem is in my Controller, I have to do things like this :

/**
 * @Rest\Put("/user/{id}")
 * @param Request $request
 * @return View
 */
public function putUserRequest(Request $request)
{
    $userId = $request->get('id');
    $user = $this->doctrine->getRepository(User::class)->findOneBy('id' => $userId);

    $userFromRequest = $this->serializer->deserialize($request->getContent(), User::class, 'json'); 

    if ($userFromRequest->getUsername() != NULL) {
        $user->setUsername($userFromRequest->getUsername())
    }
    if ($userFromRequest->getEmail() != NULL) {
        $user->setEmail($userFromRequest->getEmail())
    }
    if ($userFromRequest->getPassword() != NULL) {
        $user->setPassword($userFromRequest->getPassword())
    }
    // ...
}

In my example I have only 3 properties, but imagine when I have 30 properties.

With Symfony 3 I used forms to validate / save my datas :

$form->submit($request->request->all(), $clearMissing);

Where $clearMissing is false to keep datas not provided by the user of my API. I can't find a way to do it with serializer but I guess I'm doing things wrong.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, You can use the validator Component like this :

/**
 * @Rest\Put("/user/{id}")
 * @param Request $request
 * @return View 
 */
public function putUserRequest(User $user, Request $request, ValidatorInterface $validator)
{

 $data = $request->getContent();

 $this->serializer->deserialize($data, User::class, 'json', ['object_to_populate' => $user]); 

//At this moment, the data you sent is merged with your user entity 

 /** @var ConstraintViolationList $errors */
  $errors = $validator->validate($user, null ,['groups' => 'user_update']);

   if (count($errors) > 0) {
       //return json reponse with formated errors;
   }

   //if ok $entityManager->flush() and Response Json with serialization group;

    ...

}

In your user class :

class User implements UserInterface
{
    /**
     * @Assert\Email(groups={"user_create", "user_update"})
     */
    private $email;

    /**
     * @Assert\NotBlank(groups={"user_create", "user_update"})
     * @Assert\Length(min=7, groups={"user_create", "user_update"})
     */
    private $password;

    /**
     * @Assert\Length(min=2, groups={"user_create", "user_update"} )
     */
    private $username;
}

Related Validator component documentation : https://symfony.com/doc/current/validation/groups.html

You can also check this project : https://github.com/attineos/relation-deserializer