complex-backend-config.md

How to Manage Configuration for Complex Backends

The recommended way to start configuring your backend is to use the app/config/config.yml file and put your configuration under the easy_admin key. However, for medium-sized and large backends this configuration can be very long and hard to maintain.

In those cases, it's better to create a new app/config/easyadmin.yml file to define all the configuration related to the backend and then, import that file from the general config.yml file:

# app/config/config.yml
imports:
    - { resource: parameters.yml }
    - { resource: security.yml }
    - { resource: services.yml }
    - { resource: easyadmin.yml }  # <-- add this line

# app/config/easyadmin.yml      # <-- create this file
easy_admin:
    # ...
    # copy all the configuration originally defined in config.yml
    # ...

Splitting Configuration into Several Files

If your application keeps growing, moving its configuration to easyadmin.yml file won't solve your problem. In this case it's better to split the configuration into different files.

Consider an application which defines the following configuration:

# app/config/easyadmin.yml
easy_admin:
    site_name: '...'
    # ...
    design:
        # ...
    entities:
        Product:
            # ...
        User:
            # ...
        Category:
            # ...
        # ...

This configuration is going to be divided into four different files:

• design.yml for design related configuration;
• product.yml for the configuration related to Product entity;
• user.yml for the configuration related to User entity;
• basic.yml for the rest of the configuration, including any entity different from Product and User.

First, create a new app/config/easyadmin/ directory to store the new files so they don't mess with the other Symfony configuration files. Then, create the four files with these contents:

# app/config/easyadmin/basic.yml
easy_admin:
    site_name: '...'
    # ...

# app/config/easyadmin/design.yml
easy_admin:
    design:
        # ...

# app/config/easyadmin/product.yml
easy_admin:
    entities:
        Product:
            # ...

# app/config/easyadmin/user.yml
easy_admin:
    entities:
        User:
            # ...

Beware that each configuration file must define its contents under the easy_admin key. Otherwise, Symfony won't be able to merge the different configurations.

The last step is to import those files from any configuration file loaded for Symfony, usually config.yml:

# Before Symfony 2.8
# app/config/config.yml
imports:
    - { resource: easyadmin/basic.yml }
    - { resource: easyadmin/design.yml }
    - { resource: easyadmin/product.yml }
    - { resource: easyadmin/user.yml }

# Symfony 2.8 and higher
# app/config/config.yml
imports:
    - { resource: easyadmin/ }

The imported files can define any number of EasyAdmin configuration options. You can even define the same option in several files and Symfony will take care of merging all values (the last one always wins).

Importing EasyAdmin Configuration from Different Bundles

This technique is also useful when your entities are scattered across different bundles. You can define their backend configuration separately in each bundle and then load those files through the service configuration loading mechanism.

Consider an application which contains a ProductBundle bundle where the Product entity is defined. First, create the configuration file for that entity:

# src/ProductBundle/Resources/config/product.yml
easy_admin:
    entities:
        Product:
            # ...

Then, import the product.yml file from the DependencyInjection extension defined by the bundle:

namespace ProductBundle\DependencyInjection;

use Symfony\Component\Config\FileLocator;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerBuilder;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Loader\YamlFileLoader;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\DependencyInjection\Extension;

// ...
public function load(array $configs, ContainerBuilder $container)
{
    // ...

    $loader = new YamlFileLoader($container, new FileLocator(__DIR__.'/../Resources/config'));
    $loader->load('product.yml');
}

Alternatively, if you don't want to use a DependencyInjection extension, you can import the bundle's file from the main Symfony configuration file:

imports:
    # ...
    - { resource: "@ProductBundle/Resources/config/product.yml" }