Core: Cache not updated when entity annotation is changed

[alexandresalome]

This morning, I started a new project with API Platform v2.4, and almost from scratch, I had to clear the cache to get my API documentation updated.

Steps to reproduce

Create a new Symfony application api-platform-issue symfony new --full api-platform-issue.

Go to this new project (cd api-platform-issue).

Install API platform by using composer req api.

Install embedded web server composer req server and start it bin/console server:run.

Open API doc: http://localhost:8000/api

Create an entity Pizza:

<?php

namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Core\Annotation\ApiResource;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ApiResource
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class Pizza
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     *
     * @var int
     */
    private $id;

    public function getId(): ?int
    {
        return $this->id;
    }
}

Refresh your API doc, you don't see any change.

Delete your cache (rm -rf var/cache).

API is updated.

Further steps

If you delete the annotation and update cache, you'll see no change.

Environment details

Bug reproduced:

• With a docker environment (PHP 7.3)
• With my local PHP setup (PHP 7.2)

[dunglas]

Probably related to https://github.com/api-platform/core/pull/2629... @teohhanhui can you take a look? Maybe should we revert this patch until it is properly tested and "edge cases" (this one is a basic case) are handled properly.

[soyuka]

This is even more related to #2593 and it's not easy to take a decision that will not have an impact.

[dunglas]

I prefer to favor DX than performance in dev env.

[teohhanhui]

~Symfony uses cache in dev environment out of the box. We should do the same. If we require more manual cache:clear, then that's something we should fix.~

[teohhanhui]

Okay, I was mistaken. Symfony does not use cache in dev environment out of the box:

Validator: https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/v4.2.4/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/DependencyInjection/FrameworkExtension.php#L1134-L1136

Serializer: https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/v4.2.4/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/DependencyInjection/FrameworkExtension.php#L1376-L1388

PropertyAccess: https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/v4.2.4/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/DependencyInjection/FrameworkExtension.php#L1680-L1688

So @dunglas is right, we have to revert.

[bastnic]

So we are back at square 1 with a lot of things to improve performance as it's so poor right now it's a also DX problem.

[teohhanhui]

@bastnic Unfortunately, yeah...

[soyuka]

About this case you can still use metadata_cache=true in your configuration but yeah...

[dunglas]

@bastnic in the meantime you can set api_platform.metadata_cache to true if you don't mind running cache:clear manually. But I'm sure there are rooms for improvements that doesn't hurt DX.

[bastnic]

If I remember correctly, the main issues are:

• parsing to get which property is the identifier
• reconstruct all the routing on each requests
• that there is no static cache whatsoever when it's disabled and so we do all these heavy operations again and again.

[teohhanhui]

I'll look into it.

[teohhanhui]

Closing as it's been reverted in #2648, but I'll look into https://github.com/api-platform/core/issues/2644#issuecomment-476205943