Select or create an entity - forms

Question

I usually find answers to solve my problems after some research, but that is not the case today.
Let's suppose I have 2 entities, "Task" and "TaskCategory", each task has one category.
I want to let my users not only attribute an existing category to their tasks but also create new ones.
Here's the code I have so far:
<?php
// TaskCategoryType.php
class TaskCategoryType extends AbstractType
{
/**
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder
->add('name')
;
}
// Some stuff...
and
<?php
// TaskType.php
// Some stuff...
/**
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder
// Add some fields there
->add(
'category',
TransformableEntityType::class,
['class' => 'AppBundle:TaskCategory']
)
->addEventListener(FormEvents::PRE_SUBMIT, function (FormEvent $event) {
$task = $event->getData();
$form = $event->getForm();
if (empty($task['category']['id']) && !empty($task['category']['name'])) {
$task['category']['id'] = null;
$event->setData($task);
$form->remove('category');
$form->add('category', TaskCategoryType::class);
}
})
;
}
// Some stuff...
It works fine for task creation, but when I edit an existing task, it edit the associated TaskCategory instead of creating a new one.
I was trying to force the creation of a new TaskCategory with : $task['category']['id'] = null; but it does not work.
Thanks for your help I'm really stuck :(
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm using this form only as an API that's why I have only one 'category' field, otherwise I would have used another 'category_new' field.

Answer 1

Well it seems I finally found something working, it's not pretty, I'm not pretty happy with how it's done but at the moment I have not found any alternative.
If you have a cleaner solution I'll be happy to learn.
<?php
class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
/**
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder
// Some fields...
->add(
'category',
TransformableEntityType::class,
['class' => 'AppBundle:TaskCategory']
)
->addEventListener(FormEvents::PRE_SUBMIT, function (FormEvent $event) {
$task = $event->getData();
$form = $event->getForm();
if (empty($task['category']['id']) && !empty($task['category']['name'])) {
// If there is no category id but there is a category
// name it means it is a new category. so replace
// the custom entity field with this simple field
$form->remove('category');
$form->add('category', TaskCategoryType::class, ['allow_extra_fields' => true]);
}
})
->addEventListener(FormEvents::SUBMIT, function (FormEvent $event) {
$catForm = $event->getForm()->get('category');
if ($catForm->has('name') && $catForm->get('name')->getData() !== "") {
// If there is a category name it means
// it is a new category.
$category = new TaskCategory(); // Create new category
$category->setName($catForm->get('name')->getData());
$task = $event->getData()->setCategory($category);
$event->setData($task);
}
})
;
}

Answer 2

Considering you have cascade-persist enabled for your association from Task to TaskCategory. I guess the best work around will be, to use an autocompleter which should work as tag based.
The Transformer should check with database if given TaskCategory is available, else create a new one.