How to get environment in Symfony2

In the controller use:

$this->get('kernel')->getEnvironment()

How to make a Symfony2 Twig Extension

I couldn’t find a decent tutorial online that explained twig extensions in a simple way so for those of you in need here is a step by step guide on how to create a twig extension for Symfony2.

The first thing to know is the difference between twig global, filter and functions (or just how the look in twig templates).

Global

{{ global_variable }}

Filter

{{ 'some sort of text'|filter }}

Function

{% function('some variable or text') %}

If you want more information look here:
http://twig.sensiolabs.org/doc/templates.html

For the following steps remember to change the ‘Bundle’ and ‘NameBundle’ to your bundles values. Also note that the following code is just for creating filters.

Step 1: Create the filter

Create a file Bundle/NameBundle/Extension/MyTwigExtension.php and use the following code inside it.

<?php
namespace Bundle\NameBundle\Extension;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\KernelInterface;
class MyTwigExtension extends \Twig_Extension
{
    public function getFilters()
    {
        return array(
            'uppercase_first_letter' => new \Twig_Filter_Method($this, 'uppercase_first_letter'),
            'var_dump' => new \Twig_Filter_Function('var_dump')
        );
    }

    function uppercase_first_letter($var){
        return ucwords($var);
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return 'recensus_twig_extension';
    }
}

So I’ve created two filters that I can use in my twig templates, uppercase_first_letter and var_dump. var_dump is already a function within php so that just works without having to create the method within the MyTwigExtension class. uppercase_first_letter require me to create a public method within the class.

Notice the different classes used, Twig_Filter_Method for a custom methods and Twig_Filter_Function for a php method.

Step 2: Register with config

Then you need to add the following code to the bottom of the config file (/app/config/config.yml).

services:
    anywordyouwant.twig.extension.mytwigextension:
        class: Bundle\NameBundle\Extension\MyTwigExtension
        tags:
            -  { name: twig.extension }

Step 3: Use the filters

Inside your twig templates

{{ 'what ever you want'|uppercase_first_letter }}

How to ipconfig/flush dns on Mac OSX

On Lion (Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6, or 10.7)

dscacheutil –flushcache

On Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

lookupd –flushcache

Sendmail on Ubuntu

Install Sendmail on Ubuntu

I also need my php applications to be able to send our email using the mail function. Therefore I need to install sendmail and enable it in my php.ini file.
Install Sendmail

apt-get install sendmail

Check its working

ps -aux | grep sendmail

Change php.ini

replace
;sendmail_path =
with
sendmail_path =  /usr/sbin/sendmail

Config Sendmail

sudo sendmailconfig

Change your host files

homename
/etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost myhostname

Adobe Air with Netbeans

I love Netbeans, it’s by far my favourite IDE for developing PHP applications. Recently, I’ve needed to create an Adobe Air application and from what I remember the best free IDE on windows for this was Aptana, which is ok however I found it a little slow (and I already know all the Netbeans shortcuts). So what I really wanted to do was developed Adobe Air with Netbeans, and you can…

The video below shows you step by step however it’s 5 minutes long and I can explain in 5 lines.

1. Download the Adobe Air SDK, unzip.
2. Open Netbenas, Create a new PHP Project
3. On the 3rd page of creating a new project (Run Configuration) choose Run As: Script (run in command line)
4. Then choose AdobeAIRSDK\bin\adle.exe as the PHP Interpreter
5. The final step which isn’t in the video, (after creating the index.html file and application.xml file) click the Run Project button and it will ask you for Run Configuration, makes sure you choose application.xml as the Index File NOT index.html.

Hopefully this will work for you as well!