Building a Basic CRUD App in Symfony: Job Entity Tutorial

Let’s make a Basic CRUD App in Symfony.

Symfony is a powerful PHP framework well-suited for building complex applications with clean code and modern architecture. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to create a simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) application using Symfony 6 or 7, featuring a Job entity.

Prerequisites

• PHP >= 8.1
• Composer
• Symfony CLI
• A database (e.g., MySQL or SQLite)

composer create-project symfony/skeleton job-crud
cd job-crud
composer require webapp doctrine annotations maker

Step 1: Create the Job Entity

Use Symfony Maker to generate your entity.

php bin/console make:entity Job

Fill in the fields:

• title (string)
• description (text)
• company (string)
• location (string)
• createdAt (datetime)

Once the entity is created, run the migration commands:

php bin/console make:migration
php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate

Step 2: Generate the CRUD for Job

Use Symfony Maker again to scaffold the CRUD operations.

php bin/console make:crud Job

This command will generate:

• A controller: JobController.php
• A Twig template directory: templates/job/
• A form type class: JobType.php

Step 3: Test Your Routes

After the CRUD is generated, you can access your app in the browser (e.g., http://localhost:8000/job) to:

• List all jobs
• Add a new job
• Edit an existing job
• Delete a job

Start your Symfony server if you haven’t already:

symfony server:start

Step 4: Linking to Another Entity (e.g., Category)

Let’s say we want to assign each Job to a Category. First, create the Category entity:

php bin/console make:entity Category

Fields:

• name (string)

Add the relation to Job:

In Job entity:

#[ORM\ManyToOne(inversedBy: 'jobs')]
#[ORM\JoinColumn(nullable: false)]
private ?Category $category = null;

In Category entity:

#[ORM\OneToMany(mappedBy: 'category', targetEntity: Job::class)]
private Collection $jobs;

public function __construct()
{
    $this->jobs = new ArrayCollection();
}

Run migrations again:

php bin/console make:migration
php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate

Update the form:

In JobType.php, add the category field:

use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Form\Type\EntityType;

->add('category', EntityType::class, [
    'class' => Category::class,
    'choice_label' => 'name',
])

Step 5: Customize the Templates (Optional)

You can now tweak the templates in templates/job/ to make the UI more user-friendly. For example, update index.html.twig to include links to edit/delete, and show related categories.

Example:

{% for job in jobs %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ job.title }}</td>
        <td>{{ job.category.name }}</td>
        <td>{{ job.company }}</td>
        <td>
            <a href="{{ path('app_job_edit', {'id': job.id}) }}">Edit</a>
            <form method="post" action="{{ path('app_job_delete', {'id': job.id}) }}" onsubmit="return confirm('Are you sure?');">
                <input type="hidden" name="_token" value="{{ csrf_token('delete' ~ job.id) }}">
                <button class="btn btn-danger">Delete</button>
            </form>
        </td>
    </tr>
{% endfor %}

Step 6: Validate and Secure

You can add validation rules in the Job entity using PHP attributes:

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

#[Assert\NotBlank]
#[Assert\Length(min: 3)]
private ?string $title = null;

Then, enable validation in your controller (already done if you use Symfony’s generated forms).

You may also want to restrict access using Symfony Security Bundle (optional for beginners).

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Summary

You now have a basic Symfony application that:

• Defines a Job entity
• Implements full CRUD for Job
• Links jobs to categories with a relationship
• Uses forms, Doctrine ORM, and Twig templates

Symfony’s Maker bundle and structured architecture make these tasks straightforward and clean. This foundation can be extended into a real-world job board, admin panel, or any business app.