Symfony services --> correct usage? - symfony

Question

first of all I am trying to use services for the first time... (Actually if s.o. could give a short info about how and when and why to use it.. nice ;-) )
But now to my specific case:
I wrote two controllers:
One for uploading a xlsx file to the server
One for importing the xlsx data to the DB
What I now want to do is to pass the (uploaded)path from the uploading controller to the import controller. am I correct to use the import as a service?
Code looks as the following...
class FileUploadController extends Controller
/**
* #Route("/upload", name="upload")
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function uploadAction(Request $request){
$companyid = $this->getUser()->getCompany();
if ($request->getMethod() == 'POST'){
$file = $request->files->get('xls');
$uploadedURL = '';
if(($file instanceof UploadedFile) && $file->getError()=='0'){
if(!($file->getSize()<20000)){
$originalName = $file->getClientOriginalName();
$name_array = explode('.',$originalName );
$file_type = $name_array[(sizeof($name_array)-1)];
$valid_filetypes = array('xls', 'xlsx');
if(in_array(strtolower($file_type), $valid_filetypes)){
$document = new Document();
$document->setFile($file);
$document->setSubDirectory('uploads');
$document->processFile();
$uploadedURL=$uploadedURL=$document->getUploadDirectory().DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$document->getSubDirectory().DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file->getBasename();
}else{
echo "Wrong File Ending";
}
}else {
echo "File to big";
}
}else{
print_r('File Error');
die;;
}
$this->get("dataimport.service")->importIndexAction($uploadedURL);
}else{
return $this->render(bla)
DataImportController as:
class DataImportController extends Controller
/**
* #param ContainerInterface $container
*/
public function __construct(ContainerInterface $container)
{
$this->container = $container;
}
/**
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function importIndexAction($path)
{
$companyid = $this->getUser()->getCompany();
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$file = $this->defineFilePathAction($path);
$reader = $this->readExcelAction($file);
$accountarray = $this->getAccountsArrayAction($companyid);
$this->importAccountsAction($companyid, $reader, $accountarray, $em);
}
....
/**
* Get a service from the container
*
* #param string The service to get
*/
public function get($service)
{
return $this->container->get($service);
}
services.yml
services:
dataimport.service:
class: AppBundle\Controller\DataHandling\DataImportController
arguments: [#service_container]
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

In Symfony a controller and service is at first just a class. A controller's public method is meant to take an input and generates an Response (output) (by the way injecting the Request is deprecated, you have to use the current request from the request_stack). A service is an object out of the DI container with no constraints at all.
Since the controller's method has to generate and return a response, it's mostly not a good idea to invoke a controller from another controller, because you maybe don't need that response, but only the implementation of the method.
That's also the reason why you should move reusable code to services. A controller should actually only:
extract data from the request
call some services
render a template with the result
Same for Commands. The services are the core of your application. Horizontal communication between controllers or commands is mostly a bad idea (only of course some proxies or wrapper).
Here are some ideas for your code:
The action itself is too much unreadable code. If you get the uploaded file via symfony form read this https://stackoverflow.com/a/28754907/4469738
Don't access the request directly if you use forms. The reason is, that only your builder or Type class which creates the form (and the data class), knows the name of the input fields and maps them to a data class. You should just use the data class. Then you get a nice UploadedFile object to check everything, but also move the checks to services.