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Implementing a book module in Dotkernel API using dotkernel/dot-maker

The dotkernel/dot-maker library can be used to programmatically generate project files and directories. It can be added to your API installation by following the official documentation.

Folder and files structure

The below files structure is what we will have at the end of this tutorial and is just an example, you can have multiple components such as event listeners, wrappers, etc.

.
└── src/
    ├── Book/
    │   └── src/
    │       ├── Collection/
    │       │   └── BookCollection.php
    │       ├── Handler/
    │       │   ├── GetBookCollectionHandler.php
    │       │   ├── GetBookResourceHandler.php
    │       │   └── PostBookResourceHandler.php
    │       ├── InputFilter/
    │       │   ├── Input/
    │       │   │   ├── AuthorInput.php
    │       │   │   ├── NameInput.php
    │       │   │   └── ReleaseDateInput.php
    │       │   └── CreateBookInputFilter.php
    │       ├── Service/
    │       │   ├── BookService.php
    │       │   └── BookServiceInterface.php
    │       ├── ConfigProvider.php
    │       └── RoutesDelegator.php
    └── Core/
        └── src/
            └── Book/
                └── src/
                    ├──Entity/
                    │   └──Book.php
                    ├──Repository/
                    │   └──BookRepository.php
                    └── ConfigProvider.php
  • src/Book/src/Collection/BookCollection.php – a collection refers to a container for a group of related objects, typically used to manage sets of related entities fetched from a database
  • src/Book/src/Handler/GetBookCollectionHandler.php – handler that reflects the GET action for the BookCollection class
  • src/Book/src/Handler/GetBookResourceHandler.php – handler that reflects the GET action for the Book entity
  • src/Book/src/Handler/PostBookResourceHandler.php – handler that reflects the POST action for the Book entity
  • src/Book/src/InputFilter/Input/* – input filters and validator configurations
  • src/Book/src/InputFilter/CreateBookInputFilter.php – input filters and validators
  • src/Book/src/Service/BookService.php – is a class or component responsible for performing a specific task or providing functionality to other parts of the application
  • src/Book/src/Service/BookServiceInterface.php – interface that reflects the publicly available methods in BookService
  • src/Book/src/ConfigProvider.php – is a class that provides configuration for various aspects of the framework or application
  • src/Book/src/RoutesDelegator.php – a routes delegator is a delegator factory responsible for configuring routing middleware based on routing configuration provided by the application
  • src/Core/src/Book/src/Entity/Book.php – an entity refers to a PHP class that represents a persistent object or data structure
  • src/Core/src/Book/src/Repository/BookRepository.php – a repository is a class responsible for querying and retrieving entities from the database
  • src/Core/src/Book/src/ConfigProvider.php – is a class that provides configuration for Doctrine ORM

File creation and contents

After successfully installing dot-maker, it can be used to generate the Book module. Invoke dot-maker by executing ./vendor/bin/dot-maker or via the optional script described in the documentation - composer make. This will list all component types that can be created - for the purposes of this tutorial, enter module:

./vendor/bin/dot-maker module

Type book when prompted to enter the module name.

Next you will be prompted to add the relevant components of a module, accepting y(es), n(o) and Enter (defaults to yes):

Note that dot-maker will automatically split the files into the described Api and Core structure without a further input needed.

  • Entity and repository (Y): will generate the Book.php entity and the associated BookRepository.php.
  • Service and service interface (Y): will generate the BookService and the BookServiceInterface.
  • Command, followed by middleware(N): not necessary for the module described in this tutorial.
  • Handler (Y): this option is needed, and will further prompt you for the required actions.
    • Allow listing Books? (Y): this will generate both the GetBookResourceHandler.php class and the BookCollection.php it uses.
    • Allow viewing Books? (Y): will generate the single resource GET action handler - GetBookResourceHandler.php.
    • Allow creating Books? (Y): will generate the POST action handler for the Book entity - PostBookResourceHandler.php, as well as the input filter used for validating the data - CreateBookInputFilter.php.
    • Allow deleting Books?, Allow editing Books? and Allow replacing Books? (N): will generate handlers that reflect the DELETE, PATCH and PUT actions respectively, but are not necessary for this tutorial.
  • Following this step, dot-maker will automatically generate the ConfigProvider.php classes for both the Api and Core namespaces, as well as the OpenAPI.php class which automatically documents the previously generated routes.

You will then be instructed to:

  • Register the ConfigProvider classes by adding Api\Book\ConfigProvider::class and Core\Book\ConfigProvider::class to config/config.php
  • Register the new Book namespace by adding "Api\\Book\\": "src/Book/src/" and "Core\\Book\\": "src/Core/src/Book/src/" to composer.json under the autoload.psr-4 key.
    • After registering the namespace, run the following command to regenerate the autoloaded files, as notified by dot-maker:
composer dump
  • dot-maker will by default prompt you to generate the migrations for the new entity, but for the purpose of this tutorial we will run this after updating the generated entity.

The next step is filling in the required logic for the proposed flow of this module. While dot-maker does also include common logic in the relevant files, the tutorial adds custom functionality. As such, the following section will go over the files that require changes.

  • src/Core/src/Book/src/Entity/Book.php

To keep things simple in this tutorial, our book will have three properties: name, author and releaseDate. Add the three properties and their getters and setters, while making sure to update the generated constructor method.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Core\Book\Entity;

use Core\App\Entity\AbstractEntity;
use Core\App\Entity\TimestampsTrait;
use Core\Book\Repository\BookRepository;
use DateTimeImmutable;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

#[ORM\Entity(repositoryClass: BookRepository::class)]
#[ORM\Table("book")]
#[ORM\HasLifecycleCallbacks]
class Book extends AbstractEntity
{
    use TimestampsTrait;

    #[ORM\Column(name: "name", type: "string", length: 100)]
    protected string $name;

    #[ORM\Column(name: "author", type: "string", length: 100)]
    protected string $author;

    #[ORM\Column(name: "releaseDate", type: "datetime_immutable")]
    protected DateTimeImmutable $releaseDate;

    public function __construct(string $name, string $author, DateTimeImmutable $releaseDate)
    {
        parent::__construct();

        $this->setName($name);
        $this->setAuthor($author);
        $this->setReleaseDate($releaseDate);
    }

    public function getName(): string
    {
        return $this->name;
    }

    public function setName(string $name): self
    {
        $this->name = $name;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getAuthor(): string
    {
        return $this->author;
    }

    public function setAuthor(string $author): self
    {
        $this->author = $author;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getReleaseDate(): DateTimeImmutable
    {
        return $this->releaseDate;
    }

    public function setReleaseDate(DateTimeImmutable $releaseDate): self
    {
        $this->releaseDate = $releaseDate;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getArrayCopy(): array
    {
        return [
            'uuid'        => $this->getUuid()->toString(),
            'name'        => $this->getName(),
            'author'      => $this->getAuthor(),
            'releaseDate' => $this->getReleaseDate(),
        ];
    }
}

The BookService class will require minor modifications for the getBooks() and saveBook() methods, to add the custom properties added in the previous step. The class should look like the following after updating the methods.

  • src/Book/src/Service/BookService.php
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Api\Book\Service;

use Core\App\Helper\Paginator;
use Core\Book\Entity\Book;
use Core\Book\Repository\BookRepository;
use DateTimeImmutable;
use Doctrine\ORM\QueryBuilder;
use Dot\DependencyInjection\Attribute\Inject;

use function in_array;

class BookService implements BookServiceInterface
{
    #[Inject(
        BookRepository::class,
    )]
    public function __construct(
        protected BookRepository $bookRepository,
    ) {
    }

    public function getBookRepository(): BookRepository
    {
        return $this->bookRepository;
    }

    public function deleteBook(
        Book $book,
    ): void {
        $this->bookRepository->deleteResource($book);
    }

    /**
     * @param array<non-empty-string, mixed> $params
     */
    public function getBooks(
        array $params,
    ): QueryBuilder {
        $filters = $params['filters'] ?? [];
        $params  = Paginator::getParams($params, 'book.created');

        $sortableColumns = [
            'book.name',
            'book.author',
            'book.releaseDate',
            'book.created',
        ];
        if (! in_array($params['sort'], $sortableColumns, true)) {
            $params['sort'] = 'book.created';
        }

        return $this->bookRepository->getBooks($params, $filters);
    }

    /**
     * @param array<non-empty-string, mixed> $data
     */
    public function saveBook(
        array $data,
        ?Book $book = null,
    ): Book {
        if (! $book instanceof Book) {
            $book = new Book(
                $data['name'],
                $data['author'],
                new DateTimeImmutable($data['releaseDate'])
            );
        }

        $this->bookRepository->saveResource($book);

        return $book;
    }
}

When creating or updating a book, we will need some validators, so we will create input filters that will be used to validate the data received in the request.

By creating a module with dot-maker, separate inputs will not be created. However, you can still generate them as using these steps:

  • Run the following to start adding Input classes:
./vendor/bin/dot-maker input
  • When prompted, enter the names Author, Name and ReleaseDate one by one to generate the classes.
  • The resulting AuthorInput.php, NameInput.php and ReleaseDateInput.php classes require no further changes for the tutorial use case.

The module creation process has generated the parent input filter CreateBookInputFilter.php with an empty constructor. Now we add all the inputs together in the parent input filter's __construct, as below:

  • src/Book/src/InputFilter/CreateBookInputFilter.php
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Api\Book\InputFilter;

use Api\Book\InputFilter\Input\AuthorInput;
use Api\Book\InputFilter\Input\NameInput;
use Api\Book\InputFilter\Input\ReleaseDateInput;
use Core\App\InputFilter\AbstractInputFilter;

class CreateBookInputFilter extends AbstractInputFilter
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->add(new NameInput('name'));
        $this->add(new AuthorInput('author'));
        $this->add(new ReleaseDateInput('releaseDate'));
    }
}

We create separate Input files to demonstrate their reusability and obtain a clean CreateBookInputFilter but you could have all the inputs created directly in the CreateBookInputFilter like this:

Note that dot-maker will not generate inputs in the constructor, so the following are to be added by hand if going for this approach.

$nameInput = new Input('name');
$nameInput->setRequired(true);

$nameInput->getFilterChain()
    ->attachByName(StringTrim::class)
    ->attachByName(StripTags::class);

$nameInput->getValidatorChain()
    ->attachByName(NotEmpty::class, [
        'message' => Message::VALIDATOR_REQUIRED_FIELD,
    ], true);

$this->add($nameInput);

$authorInput = new Input('author');
$authorInput->setRequired(true);

$authorInput->getFilterChain()
    ->attachByName(StringTrim::class)
    ->attachByName(StripTags::class);

$authorInput->getValidatorChain()
    ->attachByName(NotEmpty::class, [
        'message' => Message::VALIDATOR_REQUIRED_FIELD,
    ], true);

$this->add($authorInput);

$releaseDateInput = new Input('releaseDate');
$releaseDateInput->setRequired(true);

$releaseDateInput->getFilterChain()
    ->attachByName(StringTrim::class)
    ->attachByName(StripTags::class);

$releaseDateInput->getValidatorChain()
    ->attachByName(NotEmpty::class, [
        'message' => Message::VALIDATOR_REQUIRED_FIELD,
    ], true);

$this->add($releaseDateInput);

Migrations

All changes are done, so at this point the migration file can be generated to create the associated table for the Book entity.

You can check the mapping files by running:

php ./bin/doctrine orm:validate-schema

Generate the migration files by running:

php ./vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations diff

This will check for differences between your entities and database structure and create migration files if necessary, in src/Core/src/App/src/Migration.

To execute the migrations run:

php ./vendor/bin/doctrine-migrations migrate

Update the authorization file

We need to configure access to the newly created endpoints. Open config/autoload/authorization.global.php and append the below route names to the UserRoleEnum::Guest->value key:

  • book::list-books
  • book::view-book
  • book::create-book

Make sure you read and understand the rbac documentation.

Checking endpoints

First, we start a local server by executing:

composer serve

If we did everything as planned, we should be able to create a new book by executing the below command:

curl -X POST http://0.0.0.0:8080/book
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
  -d '{"name": "test", "author": "author name", "releaseDate": "2025-08-21"}'

To list the books use:

curl http://0.0.0.0:8080/book

To fetch a book, curl one of the links found in the output of the list books command, under _embedded . books . * . _links . self . href.

The link should have the following format:

curl http://0.0.0.0:8080/book/{uuid}