Embed a Symfony controller into a Prestashop controller

We are migrating from 100% Symfony to Prestashop 1.7 but we would like to keep and re-use our existing codebase. Here’s a how-to.

How Symfony works

URL > Router > Controller > Symfony Services calls & DB calls via Doctrine > display Twig template

You go to a URL, which is mapped to a Controller via the @Route annotation. This Controller will fetch data from Services and directly from the database (through the Doctrine Service 😉), and then send those data to a template that will display them in a nice way.

How Prestashop works

Pretty much the same way !

URL > Tab > Controller > Prestashop static functions & raw DB calls via PDO > display Smarty template

Call symfony from a Prestashop Controller

In you are on a Backoffice page, the symfony global $kernel is always available. If you’re on a Frontoffice page, you have to create it manually (see this page on how to work with the symfony kernel in Prestashop):

// for the front
require_once _PS_ROOT_DIR_ . "/app/AppKernel.php";
$kernel = new \AppKernel("prod", false); // $env, $debug
$kernel->boot();
// or if for the back
// global $kernel;
$twig = $kernel->getContainer()->get("twig");
$html = $twig->render(
  _PS_ROOT_DIR_ . "/src/YourBundle/Resources/views/Directory1/view1.html.twig",
  [
    "var1" => [],
    "var2" => "your value here",
    "var3" => 123,
  ],
);