The main new feature of the Console component in Symfony 4.1 is the advanced output control that lets you update different parts of the output simultaneously. However, we improved the the Console with other minor changes too.

Automatically run the suggested command

Pierre du Plessis
Contributed by Pierre du Plessis in #25732

In Symfony, when you mistype the command name you see an error message with a list of similarly named commands. In Symfony 4.1, when there's only one alternative command, you get the option to run it right away:

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$ ./bin/console app:user:impot

  Command "app:user:impot" not defined.
  Do you want to run "app:user:import" instead? [y/n]

New table styles

Dany Maillard
Contributed by Dany Maillard in #25301 and #26693

In Symfony 4.1, tables displayed as part of the command output can select two new styles called box and box-double:

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$table->setStyle('box');
$table->render();
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┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────┬──────────────────┐
│ ISBN          │ Title                    │ Author           │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼──────────────────┤
│ 99921-58-10-7 │ Divine Comedy            │ Dante Alighieri  │
│ 9971-5-0210-0 │ A Tale of Two Cities     │ Charles Dickens  │
│ 960-425-059-0 │ The Lord of the Rings    │ J. R. R. Tolkien │
│ 80-902734-1-6 │ And Then There Were None │ Agatha Christie  │
└───────────────┴──────────────────────────┴──────────────────┘
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$table->setStyle('box-double');
$table->render();
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╔═══════════════╤══════════════════════════╤══════════════════╗
║ ISBN          │ Title                    │ Author           ║
╠═══════════════╪══════════════════════════╪══════════════════╣
║ 99921-58-10-7 │ Divine Comedy            │ Dante Alighieri  ║
║ 9971-5-0210-0 │ A Tale of Two Cities     │ Charles Dickens  ║
║ 960-425-059-0 │ The Lord of the Rings    │ J. R. R. Tolkien ║
║ 80-902734-1-6 │ And Then There Were None │ Agatha Christie  ║
╚═══════════════╧══════════════════════════╧══════════════════╝

New methods to customize tables

Dany Maillard
Contributed by Dany Maillard in #25456

In addition to the new table styles, in Symfony 4.1 we've deprecated some methods (setHorizontalBorderChar(), setVerticalBorderChar(), setCrossingChar()) to introduce more powerful methods that will allow you to customize every single character used to draw the table borders.

For example, the new setCrossingChars() can customize 9 different characters:

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public function setCrossingChars(
    string $cross, string $topLeft, string $topMid, string $topRight,
    string $midRight, string $bottomRight, string $bottomMid,
    string $bottomLeft, string $midLeft
);

// * 1---------------2-----------------------2------------------3
// | ISBN          | Title                 | Author           |
// 8---------------0-----------------------0------------------4
// | 99921-58-10-7 | Divine Comedy         | Dante Alighieri  |
// | 9971-5-0210-0 | A Tale of Two Cities  | Charles Dickens  |
// | 960-425-059-0 | The Lord of the Rings | J. R. R. Tolkien |
// 7---------------6-----------------------6------------------5

// @param string $cross       Crossing char (see #0 of example)
// @param string $topLeft     Top left char (see #1 of example)
// @param string $topMid      Top mid char (see #2 of example)
// @param string $topRight    Top right char (see #3 of example)
// @param string $midRight    Mid right char (see #4 of example)
// @param string $bottomRight Bottom right char (see #5 of example)
// @param string $bottomMid   Bottom mid char (see #6 of example)
// @param string $bottomLeft  Bottom left char (see #7 of example)
// @param string $midLeft     Mid left char (see #8 of example)

Added support for outputting iterators

Tobias Schultze Maxime Steinhausser
Contributed by Tobias Schultze and Maxime Steinhausser in #26847 and #26863

In Symfony 4.1, the write() and writeln() methods of the Console output (including SymfonyStyle output too) support passing iterators that return strings:

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private function generateMessages(): iterable
{
    yield 'foo';
    yield 'bar';
}

// ...
$output->writeln($this->generateMessages());
// Output will be:
// foo\n
// bar\n
Published in #Living on the edge