Symfony2: Using Doctrine outside controller - symfony

Question

I'm a bit of noob when it comes to OOP PHP, so please forgive me if I make this sound more complicated then it is.
Basically I am trying to clean up my controller as it's starting to get too cluttered.
I have my entities set up and I have also created a repository to add methods for some db queries to a sqlite database.
But now I also have to manipulate this data before outputting it, I've created a separate connector class that fetches additional info (from an XML web source) for each item being queried and then this gets added to the doctrine query data before being outputted.
I could manipulate this data in the repository but the data I am adding obviously doesn't originate from my entity. So I have therefore created a separate model class to add this data.
Please tell me if I'm on the right track.
In my entity repository I will have a custom method like this:
public function queryTop10All()
{
$query = $this->getEntityManager($this->em)
->createQueryBuilder('u')
->select('u.ratingkey, u.origTitle, u.origTitleEp, u.episode, u.season, u.year, u.xml, count(u.title) as playCount')
->from($this->class, 'u')
->groupBy('u.title')
->orderBy('playCount', 'desc')
->addOrderBy('u.ratingkey', 'desc')
->setMaxResults(10)
->getQuery();
return $query->getResult();
}
Now I created a new class in \Model\ChartsDataModel.php and I am injecting doctrine into it using a service and calling the custom method, getting the results and then adding the additional data from the web connector to it, like so:
namespace PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Model;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
use PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Connector\XMLExtractor;
use PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Connector\WebConnector;
use PWW\ContentBundle\Entity\Settings;
class ChartsDataModel {
private $settings;
private $repository;
private $em;
public function __construct(EntityManager $em)
{
$this->settings = new Settings();
$this->repository = $this->settings->getGroupingCharts() ? 'PWWDataFactoryBundle:Grouped' : 'PWWDataFactoryBundle:Processed';
$this->em = $em;
}
public function getChartsTop10All()
{
$xmlExtractor = new XMLExtractor();
$webConnector = new WebConnector();
$results = $this->em->getRepository($this->repository)->queryTop10All();
$xml = $xmlExtractor->unXmlArray($results);
$outputArray = array();
foreach($xml as $item) {
$outputArray[] = array(
"ratingKey" => $item['ratingkey'],
"origTitle" => $item['origTitle'],
"origTitleEp" => $item['origTitleEp'],
"playCount" => $item['playCount'],
"episode" => $item['episode'],
"season" => $item['season'],
"year" => $item['year'],
"type" => $item['media']['type'],
"parent" => $webConnector->getMetaData($webConnector->getMetaDataParentKey($item['ratingkey'])),
"metadata" => $webConnector->getMetaData($item['ratingkey'])
);
}
return $outputArray;
}
}
The xmlExtractor class is used to pull out certain xml fields stored in a database field as a raw xml dump.
My config.yml:
services:
pww.datafactorybundle.model.charts_data_model:
class: PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Model\ChartsDataModel
arguments: [ #doctrine.orm.entity_manager ]
Then in my controller, I just instantiate a new ChartsDataModel and call the method like so:
namespace PWW\ContentBundle\Controller;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
...
use PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Model\ChartsDataModel;
public function chartsAction()
{
$charts = new ChartsDataModel($this->getDoctrine()->getManager());
$top10Array = $charts->getChartsTop10All();
return $this->render('PWWContentBundle:Default:charts.html.twig', array('page' => 'charts', 'top10' => $top10Array));
}
I just want to know if I am doing this correctly and is there a better way of doing this (or right way)?
I'm also very new to Symfony and still getting my head around it. I just don't want to get into bad habits so I'm trying to do things right from the start.
I hope I explained this well enough :)
TIA

Answer 1

Just detected two things that are in the top of my head.
1 If you define the service like:
services:
pww.datafactorybundle.model.charts_data_model:
class: PWW\DataFactoryBundle\Model\ChartsDataModel
arguments: [ #doctrine.orm.entity_manager ]
Then you can inject it in the controller like described here, so you keep the service arguments out of the Controller:
public function chartsAction()
{
$myservice = $this->get('pww.datafactorybundle.model.charts_data_model');
$top10Array = $myservice->getChartsTop10All();
}
Secondly, I would not put this standard queries in the Model, I think is better to keep the models clean with their setters, getters and put this custom queries elsewhere like in a service that will handle all related Chart queries and you can instance from anywhere else.