Using Symfony 1.1's Error Levels Properly

Here’s how to log a message in your action (using the INFO=6 level):

$this->logMessage(‘account_id: ‘.$account->getAccountId(),‘INFO’);

And elsewhere (using the CRIT=2 level):

sfContext::getInstance()-&gt;getLogger()-&gt;log(&#8216;rsync returned error code (&#8217;.$return.&#8217;)&#8217;, &#8216;<span class="caps">CRIT</span>&#8217;);
sfContext::getInstance()-&gt;getLogger()-&gt;log(debug($output,0,1),&#8216;<span class="caps">CRIT</span>&#8217;); // for Arrays
sfContext::getInstance()-&gt;getLogger()-&gt;warning(&#8216;we should look at why this is happening&#8217;); // using the <span class="caps">WARNING</span>=4 level

Here’s the error levels that symfony gives us, ERR=3 being the default:

const EMERG   = 0; // System is unusable
const ALERT   = 1; // Immediate action required
const CRIT    = 2; // Critical conditions
const ERR     = 3; // Error conditions
const WARNING = 4; // Warning conditions
const NOTICE  = 5; // Normal but significant
const INFO    = 6; // Informational
const DEBUG   = 7; // Debug-level messages

I wrote a new logException method for us to have a standard way to log and deal with Exceptions. This should hopefully end up being a standard way to deal with Exceptions across the project. The dUtils::logException() method sets the message at the ERR=3 level by default. You can change that with the second argument.

class dUtils{
  public static function exceptionToString($e){
    return $e->getFile().” on line no. “.$e->getLine().” “.$e->getMessage().“nn”.$e->getTraceAsString();
  }
  public static function logException($e,$error=sfLogger::ERR){
    sfContext::getInstance()->getLogger()->log(dUtils::exceptionToString($e),$error);
  }

}

try {
  $sf_secure_user->save();

} catch (PropelException $e) {
  // problem with save
  dUtils::logException($e);
  $this->getUser()->setFlash(‘error’, ‘Account not created. Please try again.’);
  return sfView::SUCCESS;

}

And here’s how to set the logging level in factories.yml. Please be aware that the default level for all logs is set at the lowest level, DEBUG=7. On production, the level is set at ERR=3. This means that in the log file, we’ll see those errors above level DEBUG=7 or ERR=3, respectively.

  logger:
    class: sfAggregateLogger
    param:
      level: debug
      loggers:
        sf_web_debug:
          class: sfWebDebugLogger
          param:
            level: debug
            condition:      SF_WEB_DEBUG
            xdebug_logging: true
        sf_file_debug:
          class: sfFileLogger
          param:
            level: debug
            file: SF_LOG_DIR/%SF_APP%_%SF_ENVIRONMENT%.log

Loading extra YAML config files in Symfony 1.1

At Dogster, we had a bunch of strings and settings that we wanted to keep out of our actions and place into their own YAML files instead of overloading the app.yml file. Here’s how I did it:

You can use this Filter to load the files we’ll setup in app.yml. Place this new PHP file at “symfony_project/apps/frontend/lib/addYmlFilter.class.php”.

class addYmlFilter extends sfFilter<br />
{
  public function execute($filterChain)
  {
    // Execute this filter only once
    if ($this-&gt;isFirstCall() &amp;&amp; is_array(sfConfig::get(&#8216;app_load_yml_files&#8217;)))
    {
      // Filters don&#8217;t have direct access to the request and user objects.
      // You will need to use the context object to get them
      foreach(sfConfig::get(&#8216;app_load_yml_files&#8217;) as $file){
        @include(sfContext::getInstance()-&gt;getConfigCache()-&gt;checkConfig(&#8216;config/&#8217;.$file.&#8217;.yml&#8217;));
      }
    }
    // Execute next filter
    $filterChain-&gt;execute();
  }<br />
}

That filter takes care of all your caching and per-environment settings, the same as app.yml or the others in the config folder.

We will now setup four (4) new YAML files (config/paypal.yml, config/email.yml, config/flash.yml, config/forms.yml)

Place this in your app.yml file:

load:
    yml_files:
        0: paypal
        1: email
        2: flash
        3: forms

Lastly, create a new YAML file “config/config_handlers.yml” with entries for each YAML file we would like to load:

config/paypal.yml:
  class:    sfDefineEnvironmentConfigHandler
  param:
    prefix: paypal_<br />
config/email.yml:
  class:    sfDefineEnvironmentConfigHandler
  param:
    prefix: email_<br />
config/forms.yml:
  class:    sfDefineEnvironmentConfigHandler
  param:
    prefix: forms_<br />
config/flash.yml:
  class:    sfDefineEnvironmentConfigHandler
  param:
    prefix: flash_

Here is some example content you might find within email.yml:

all:
  admin: 'admin@example.com'

Once you load up Symfony, you should see all of your new config settings in the debug toolbar under “vars & config” > “SETTINGS”.

If you would like to place the new admin email setting within your code, you can now use sfConfig:

echo sfConfig::get(&#8216;email_admin&#8217;);<br />
//outputs: admin@example.com

Simple!