silex Getting started with silex

Remarks

Hello world

Create web directory in same folder as the vendor directory. Create index.php file in web directory with contents

<?php
// web/index.php

require_once __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';

$app = new Silex\Application();

$app->get("/", function () {
    return "Hello world!";
});

$app->get("/hello/{name}", function ($name) use ($app) {
    return "Hello ".$app->escape($name);
});

$app->run();

To start app using PHP built-in server run

php -S localhost:8080 -t web
 

Now you can open the browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 , to see

Hello World!

We also defined one dynamic route. Navigate to http://localhost:8080/hello/<YOUR_NAME> replacing <YOUR_NAME> with your own name to be greeted by your first Silex app.

Installation or Setup

Consider following directory structure to comply with best practices:

[ProjectRoot]
    |---[app]
    |    |---[resources]
    |    routes.php
    |---[web]
    |    |---[resources]
    |    |    |---[css]
    |    |    |---[img]
    |    |    |---[js]
    |    .htaccess
    |    index.php
    |---[src]
    |---[var]
    |---[vendor]
    composer.json
    composer.lock
 

Composer is the most flexible way to get started with Silex. Create a directory to host your Silex application (Named ProjectRoot above), cd to that directory and run the following command to create a composer.json file:

composer require silex/silex "~2.0"
 

This will add some files and directories into vendor directory, under ProjectRoot .

After that, all you need to do is require the vendor/autoload.php file and create an instance of Silex\Application in your index.php file under ProjectRoot/web . After your controller definitions (routes.php ), call the run method on your application:

ProjectRoot/web/index.php

require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';

$app = new Silex\Application();
require_once __DIR__ . '/../app/routes.php';

$app->run();
 

ProjectRoot/app/routes.php

$app->get("/", function () {
    return new \Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response('Hello World!');
});
 

ProjectRoot/web/.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    Options -MultiViews
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [QSA,L]
</IfModule>