Embedding Controller using Twig - symfony

Question

I've made it simpler (apologies for the complicated question which I've left at the bottom).
I want to have a twig template render another controller as a sub-part.
Here's the parent twig (Resources/views/Default/testRenderParent.html.twig):
<p>Look! I am your father!</p>
<p>But look, I am not your
{{ render(controller("SarelTestBundle:Default:testRenderChild")) }}</p>
Here's the child twig (Resources/views/Default/testRenderChild.html.twig):
KID
The controller (Controller/DefaultController.php):
<?php
namespace Sarel\Test\TestBundle\Controller;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Template;
/**
* #Template()
**/
class DefaultController extends Controller
{
/**
* #Route("/testRenderParent")
*/
public function testRenderParentAction()
{
return array();
}
/**
* #Route("/testRenderChild")
*/
public function testRenderChildAction() {
return array();
}
}
When you run this, with the following URL /testRenderChild you should get "KID" echoed.
When you run this, with the URL /testRenderParent (notice the "Parent" part), you should get echoed:
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am your KID
However, instead you get this echoed, and the error below it:
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
Look! I am your father!
But look, I am not your
FatalErrorException: Error: Maximum function nesting level of '250' reached, aborting! in /Users/sarel/www/playpen/app/cache/dev/classes.php line 6134
Thus you can see, it's rendering "Look! I am your father! But look, I am your "... and then instead of rendering the child controller with it's twig template, it re-renders the parent, ending in an endless loop, which is arrested by the exception.
--- copy before I changed it ---
--- copy before I changed it ---
--- copy before I changed it ---
So I'm trying to embed a controller (and ultimately the template that the action renders) in my symfony2 project using the guidelines in enter link description here.
My Controller is defined below:
<?php
namespace OTS\CoreBundle\Controller;
/**
* #Template()
*/
class EmergencyContactsController extends Controller
{
public function addEmergencyContactAction(Request $request, $id) {
return array();
}
}
I have a twig template attached to that, which right now just have "hello world" in the form of a twig file called addEmergencyContact.html.twig.
When I go to the URL for this, which is something like localhost/my_route_to_it it works perfectly fine and I see "hello world" on the screen.
Now, according to this I merely have to put the following twig command in:
{{ render(controller('OTSCoreBundle:EmergencyContacts:addEmergencyContact', {'id': 15})) }}
When I do this and I load the holding-route it appears to be trying to load the main route, and then load the main route again inside the spot where I render the child-route. I know this because it's telling me there's variables missing - variables that I'm only using in the main twig file.
Yet, when I:
Don't have the {{ render... }} in there, it works fine - i.e. it's not other code that's giving me the exception of missing variable
Render only the child-route I get a nice "hello world" back - i.e. it's not the child twig or child controller that's buggy

Answer 1

Hmmm. The question is a bit confusing but:
A. Like all controller actions, your addEmergencyContact needs to return a response, not an array. So:
class EmergencyContactsController extends Controller
{
public function addEmergencyContactAction(Request $request, $id)
{
$tplData = array();
$tplData['id'] = $id;
return $this->render('CoreBundle::emergency_contact.html.twig', $tplData);
}
}
B. You need two template files. Something like:
class HelloWorldController extends Controller
{
public function helloWorldAction(Request $request, $id)
{
$tplData = array();
$tplData['id'] = $id;
return $this->render('CoreBundle::hello_world.html.twig', $tplData);
}
}
C. The render line then goes in the hello_world.html.twig file.
{{ render(controller('OTSCoreBundle:EmergencyContacts:addEmergencyContact', {'id': 15})) }}
D. Note that your emergency_contact template will only have access to values passed into it by the emergency contact action. It will not "inherit" the values that hello_world has.
So why is my code formatting messed up? Did not like numbered lists.

Answer 2

This turns out to be a bug in the way annotations work. When I change the controller from being globally #Template() enabled to moving that old-school back to each action individually, it works. Here's the updated controller, look at where the #Template() now sits:
<?php
namespace Sarel\Test\TestBundle\Controller;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Template;
class DefaultController extends Controller
{
/**
* #Route("/testRenderParent")
* #Template()
*/
public function testRenderParentAction()
{
return array();
}
/**
* #Route("/testRenderChild")
* #Template()
*/
public function testRenderChildAction() {
return array();
}
}