FilterManagerBundle

Symfony bundle for dynamic filtering, pagination and user-scoped queries with Doctrine ORM.

Supports a friendly query string notation:

GET /api/articles?title[like]=Symfony&author->name=Alice&date[after]=2024-01-01&page=1&limit=20&scope=mine

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Symfony 6.4 or 7.x
• Doctrine ORM 2.15+ or 3.x

Security is optional. The bundle works without symfony/security-bundle. When SecurityBundle is not installed, user-scoped filtering (mine/others) is silently disabled.

Installation

composer require ericgansa/filter-manager-bundle

Register the bundle in config/bundles.php (auto-registered via Symfony Flex):

EricGansa\FilterManagerBundle\FilterManagerBundle::class => ['all' => true],

Configuration

Create config/packages/filter_manager.yaml:

filter_manager:
    # Maximum items per page — prevents ?limit=99999 abuse. Default: 100
    max_limit: 100

    # Entity field linking to the owner user. Default: 'user'
    scope_field: user

    # Query string scope names — fully customizable
    scopes:
        mine: 'mine'       # ?scope=mine   → only current user's items
        others: 'others'   # ?scope=others → exclude current user's items
        all: 'all'         # ?scope=all    → no user filter (default)

Usage

1. In a Repository (via trait)

use EricGansa\FilterManagerBundle\Filter\FilterManagerTrait;

class ArticleRepository extends ServiceEntityRepository
{
    use FilterManagerTrait;
}

2. In a Controller

use EricGansa\FilterManagerBundle\Filter\FilterManager;

class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
    public function __construct(private readonly FilterManager $filterManager) {}

    #[Route('/api/articles', methods: ['GET'])]
    public function index(Request $request, ArticleRepository $repository): JsonResponse
    {
        $articles = $this->filterManager->mapRequestToRepository(
            $request,
            $repository,
            'findByFilterManager'  // method from FilterManagerTrait
        );

        return $this->json($articles);
    }
}

3. Manual usage (without the trait)

$qb = $repository->createQueryBuilder('e');

FilterManager::applyFiltersToQueryBuilder($qb, $filters, 'e');
FilterManager::applyPaginationToQueryBuilder($qb, $pagination, 'e');

// With configured scope (uses bundle config)
$filterManager->applyScopeWithConfig($qb, $scope, $user, 'e');

Query String Reference

Example Entity

The following examples are based on this Article entity:

#[ORM\Entity(repositoryClass: ArticleRepository::class)]
class Article
{
    #[ORM\Id]
    #[ORM\GeneratedValue]
    #[ORM\Column]
    private int $id;

    #[ORM\Column(type: Types::TEXT)]
    private string $description;

    #[ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity: Label::class)]
    private Label $label;

    #[ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity: User::class)]
    private User $user;

    #[ORM\Column(type: Types::DATETIME_IMMUTABLE)]
    private \DateTimeImmutable $createdAt;
}

All query string examples in this section filter against this entity. The label relation points to a Label entity with its own label string field. The user field is used by the scope system to determine ownership.

Equality

Filter results where a field exactly matches a value.

GET /api/articles?id=5
GET /api/articles?description=Gestion agile...

LIKE (partial match)

Filter results where a field contains a substring. Two syntaxes are supported and produce identical results.

GET /api/articles?description=%Expert%
GET /api/articles?description[like]=Expert

Greater Than

Filter results where a numeric (or date) field is strictly greater than a value. Two syntaxes are supported.

GET /api/articles?id=>5
GET /api/articles?id[after]=5

Less Than

Filter results where a numeric (or date) field is strictly less than a value. Two syntaxes are supported.

GET /api/articles?id=<6
GET /api/articles?id[before]=6

Greater Than or Equal

Filter results where a field is greater than or equal to a value.

GET /api/articles?id[from]=8

Less Than or Equal

Filter results where a field is less than or equal to a value.

GET /api/articles?id[to]=5

Range (BETWEEN)

Filter results where a field falls within an inclusive range. Two syntaxes are supported.

GET /api/articles?id=3..7
GET /api/articles?id[between]=3..7

Relation Filtering

Filter on a field belonging to a related entity. Use the -> notation to traverse the relation.

⚠️ Important: Always use -> to separate the relation from the field name (e.g. label->label). Do not use . — PHP automatically converts . to _ in query strings, which causes a Doctrine error.

GET /api/articles?label->label=Développeur PHP
GET /api/articles?label->label[like]=Développeur

Date Filtering

Filter results by date using [after] and [before]. Values must be ISO 8601 date strings. The field must be of type DateTimeImmutable (or compatible).

GET /api/articles?createdAt[after]=2026-01-01
GET /api/articles?createdAt[before]=2020-01-01

Scope (User-based filtering)

Restrict results based on ownership. Requires symfony/security-bundle to be installed and a logged-in user. The entity must have a field pointing to the owner (configured via scope_field).

GET /api/articles?scope=mine
GET /api/articles?scope=others
GET /api/articles?scope=all

Chaining Filters

All filters can be combined freely in a single query string. Each parameter is applied as an additional AND condition on the query.

GET /api/articles?label->label[like]=Développeur&id[from]=3&createdAt[after]=2026-01-01&scope=mine

This example returns items that:

• have a related label containing "Développeur",
• have an id of 3 or more,
• were created after January 1st 2026,
• and belong to the currently authenticated user.

You can mix inline and array syntaxes freely:

GET /api/articles?id=>5&description[like]=Expert&scope=all

There is no limit to the number of filters that can be chained.

License

MIT © Eric Gansa