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Specifications & Filter Collections

1. Overview​

Specifications are the "Source of Truth" in Flare. They are static, context-independent descriptions of what data should be fetched and how it should be filtered.

2. List Specification (ListSpecification)​

The ListSpecification defines the base configuration for a data list.

Class: HeimrichHannot\FlareBundle\Specification\ListSpecification

Key Properties:​

  • type: The machine name of the list type (e.g., news, member).
  • dc: The Data Container (usually the database table name).
  • dataSource: An optional ListDataSourceInterface (often wrapping a Contao Model).
  • filters: A FilterDefinitionCollection containing all associated filters.

3. Filter Definition (FilterDefinition)​

A FilterDefinition describes a single filter criteria.

Class: HeimrichHannot\FlareBundle\Specification\FilterDefinition

Key Properties:​

  • type: The filter element type (e.g., flare_bool, flare_select).
  • intrinsic: Boolean indicating if the filter is "hidden" (applied automatically without user interaction).
  • alias: The unique identifier for this filter within the collection.
  • targetAlias: The SQL table alias this filter should target (defaults to main).

4. Filter Definition Collection (FilterDefinitionCollection)​

The FilterDefinitionCollection is an associative container for FilterDefinition objects.

Indexing and Overriding​

Filters in the collection are indexed by a unique key (string). This allows for powerful manipulation:

  • Adding Filters: Use add(FilterDefinition ...$item) to add filters with auto-generated keys.
  • Overriding Filters: Use set(string $key, FilterDefinition $filter) to replace a filter at a specific index. This is useful when you want a database-driven filter to be replaced by a more specific manual filter sharing the same name.
  • Retrieving Filters: Use get(string $key) or all() to access the definitions.

Filtering the Filters​

You can check for specific filter types using hasType(string $type).

5. Persistence & Hashing​

Both ListSpecification and FilterDefinition implement a hash() method. This is used by the Engine and Projector to determine if the configuration has changed, which is crucial for caching and identifying unique list states (e.g., for pagination parameters).