Accessing normalized form data in a controller in Symofny 2 - forms

I had to add a form event listener (PRE_SUBMIT) to my FormType in order to set a default value of a field based on the value of another field submitted by the user:
//In my FormType:
public function onPreSubmit(FormEvent $event)
{
$formData = $event->getData();
if (empty($formData['time_until'])) {
$date = new \DateTime($formData['time_from']);
$date->add(new \DateInterval('PT1H'));
$formData['time_until'] = $date->format('Y-m-d H:i');
}
$event->setData($formData);
}
time_unti key is set and later its value is mapped onto the form's time_until field which is of datetime type:
->add('time_until', datetime, [
'required' => false,
'input' => 'datetime',
'widget' => 'single_text',
'format' => 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm',
'label' => false,
])
No problem so far. However, I need to have access to the normalized values of the form fields in my controller, and not DateTime objects that are present on the form after the call to $form->handleRequest($request);
By "normalized", I mean I want to be able to do:
$form->get('time_until') and have a string in the form 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm' returned, and not the DateTime object stored in the form under time_until key.
Advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!

you could just add some attribute $normalizedTimeUntil in your form type class + add getter getNormalizedTimeUntil() that would return this value. Then in Form event you can set this attribute and in controller you can pull it out of form type object with the getter function
or you can add non-mapped string form field timeUntilString (http://symfony.com/doc/current/reference/forms/types/form.html#mapped) and fill it in form event
or you can add transformer (http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/data_transformers.html) to transform this Datetime object into string. This would be convienent if you for example need to store date in string form in the database). Then form field getter would return string in controller (and would get stored in the db in string also)

Related

Set default value for date in Sonata

I have a date that I'd like to set as the default value the current date and most of the posts suggest to add the 'data' => new \DateTime() but there are two issues with that in Sonata:
if I change the date to a random one or even leave it empty, it will still save in the database the current one
in the edit view it will override the date from the create view and the value will still be the current date
My code:
$form->add('startDate', DateType::class, [
'required' => false,
'label' => 'Starting date',
'data' => new \DateTime("now"),
'constraints' => ...
])
]);
What am I missing?
The data attribute will overwrite data in all cases, as you can read here in DateType Field#data.
What you can do is set a default value in the entity instead as described in What is the best way to set defaults values of a Symfony object?
In the entity, you would have the following:
private $startDate = new \DateTime("now");
The downside of this is that it also adds the default value when the entity is created outside of Sonata.

Add a Field to a CrudController that ONLY passes values to Store / Update Methods

I'm trying to handle how a field within a CrudController stores or updates the data on the particular model in a completely custom way. I would like the traitStore() and traitUpdate() methods to ignore this field entirely, but would like the data to still be passed in via the request. This is specifically in reference to a many-many relationship using a select2_multiple field.
I would like it so that the relationship ID's are passed via the request object to the Store or Update methods, but I DO NOT want the traitStore() or traitUpdate() methods to actually perform updates on that particular field reference.
For example...
I have this field within my crud controller
$this->crud->addField(
[
'label' => "Groups",
'type' => 'select2_multiple',
'name' => 'groups',
'entity' => 'groups',
'attribute' => 'title',
'model' => "App\Models\Group",
'pivot' => true
]
);
And I'm overriding the Store and Update Methods like so.
public function store()
{
$this->crud->setValidation(UserRequest::class);
// WOULD LIKE TO SAVE EVERYTHING BUT IGNORE THE GROUPS FIELD
$response = $this->traitStore();
// DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH GROUPS AT THIS POINT
$groups = $request->groups
return $response;
}
public function update()
{
$this->crud->setValidation(UserRequest::class);
// WOULD LIKE TO SAVE EVERYTHING BUT IGNORE THE GROUPS FIELD
$response = $this->traitUpdate();
// DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH GROUPS AT THIS POINT
$groups = $request->groups
return $response;
}
Looking at my comments I would like to get a reference to the groups and handle updating the model however I want.
I've tried to unset the groups value in the request, unset($this->request{'groups'}), but it still updates / removes the relationships when I do that.
Here is what you need to do to remove the references from being updated by the CrudController.
public function update()
{
$this->crud->setValidation(UserRequest::class);
$request = clone $this->request;
$this->crud->request->request->remove('groups');
$this->crud->removeField('groups');
$groups = $request->groups
$response = $this->traitUpdate();
return $response;
}
I found an easy way to ignore/pass form field.
Example:
In your form fields have first_name, last_name, gender and in your database is only have fullname, gender then you wanna create/update the form, it will show Column not found: 'first_name' not found...,
How to fix it:
Add $fillable in the model and fill the array data with name field that you want to store/update. In example case $fillable = ['fullname', 'gender'];
Then, just use mutators inside the model too.
public function setFullnameAttribute(){
return $this->attributes['fullname'] = \Request::input('first_name') . ' ' . \Request::input('last_name');
}
NB: You should have hidden field name 'fullname' in your CrudController.
$this->crud->addField(['name' => 'fullname', 'type' => 'hidden']);

A set of fields for one property entity in Symfony 2

My Product entity has the following structure:
private $id;
private $title;
/**
* #ManyToOne(targetEntity="Category")
* #JoinColumn(name="cat_id", referencedColumnName="id")
*/
private $category;
Category have nested structure. And each level of nesting is shown in 5 separate fields:
In class form code, I solve it in this way:
$builder
->add('cat_1', 'entity', array(
...
'query_builder' => function() { return someSelectLogic1(); }
))
->add('cat_2', 'entity', array(
...
'query_builder' => function() { return someSelectLogic2(); }
))
->add('cat_3', 'entity', array(
...
'query_builder' => function() { return someSelectLogic3(); }
))
->add('cat_4', 'entity', array(
...
'query_builder' => function() { return someSelectLogic4(); }
))
->add('cat_5', 'entity', array(
...
'query_builder' => function() { return someSelectLogic5(); }
))
Now I need to know which field is filled in the last turn and pass the value of that field in the entity property.
In all that I do not like:
complex logic to determine which field with category was filled at the end
each of these fields is not tied to the entity 'mapped' => false
1) What the right way to organize code of my form?
2) And is there a way to bring these fields into a separate class which will deal with the logic of determining which category was chosen in the end?
I would suggest the following:
1) Create a new custom form field type and put all those entity in there.
This process is not much different from ordinary creation of form type. Just enclose those fields in it's own buildForm() and that should do the trick. Docs.
2) Mark all those entity fields with property "property_path => false".
Clearly you wont be storing these values inside your model.
3) Add two more fields: chosen and lastOne.
Now, this might be tricky: I would either set the chosen to text type (basically, generic type) or would use entity as well. If you go for entity you would need to include all possible answers from all entity fields. As for the lastOne set it to text as it will reflect which field (by name) was selected last.
Either way, those two fields will be invisible. Don't forget to set property_path to false for lastOne field.
4) Finally, add ValueTransformer (docs) which will contain logic to "see" which field was selected last.
Now, I dealt with it only once and don't understand it just quite yet, so your best bet would be trial and error with examples from official docs, unfortunately.
What basically you should do is to, within value-transformer, read the value of field lastOne. This will give you the name of field which was selected last. Then, using that value, read the actual last value selected. Last, set that value (object, if you've went for entity type, or it's ID otherwise) to chosen field.
That should basically do the thing.
As for the JS, I don't know if you're using any framework but I will assume jQuery. You will need to set lastOne field as your selecting items in your form.
$(function(){
$('#myform').find('select').on('change', function(){
var $this = $(this);
$this.closest('form').find('#__ID_OF_YOUR_LASTONE_FIELD').val($this.attr('name'));
});
});
I'm sorry I cannot provide you with code samples for PHP right now. It's a bit late here and will do my best to further update this answer tomorrow.

Entity mapping in a Symfony2 choice field with optgroup

Suppose to have an entity in Symfony2 that has a field bestfriend, which is a User entity selected from a list of User entities that satisfy a complex requirement.
You can render this field in a form by specifying that it is an entity field type, i.e.:
$builder->add('bestfriend', 'entity', array(
'class' => 'AcmeHelloBundle:User',
'property' => 'username',
));
This form field is rendered as a <select>, where each one of the displayed values is in the form:
<option value="user_id">user_username</option>
So, one would render the field by using the <optgroup> tags to highlight such special feature of the friends.
Following this principle, I created a field type, namely FriendType, that creates the array of choices as in this answer, which is rendered as follows:
$builder->add('bestfriend', new FriendType(...));
The FriendType class creates a <select> organized with the same <option>s but organized under <optgroup>s.
Here I come to the problem! When submitting the form, the framework recognize that the user field is not an instance of User, but it is an integer. How can I let Symfony2 understand that the passed int is the id of an entity of type User?
Here follows my solution.
Notice that it is not mentioned in the Symfony2 official docs, but it works! I exploited the fact that the entity field type is child of choice.
Hence, you can just pass the array of choices as a param.
$builder->add('bestfriend', 'entity', array(
'class' => 'AcmeHelloBundle:User',
'choices' => $this->getArrayOfEntities()
));
where the function getArrayOfEntities() is a function that fills the choice list with the friends of my friends, organized by my friends:
private function getArrayOfEntities(){
$repo = $this->em->getRepository('AcmeHelloBundle:User');
$friends = $repo->findAllFriendByComplexCriteria(...);
$list = array();
foreach($friends as $friend){
$name = $friend->getUsername();
if(count($friend->getFriends())>0){
$list[$name] = array();
foreach($friend->getFriends() as $ff){
$list[$name][$ff->getUsername()] = $ff;
}
}
}
return $list;
}
I know the example could be meaningless, but it works...
PS: You need to pass the entity manager to let it working...

Does the symfony form fields initialize to null if not visible

I have few fields on the form like name, description, timestamp.
Now in the form I am only displaying name and description but not timestamp.
public function __construct()
{
$this->setTimestamp(new \DateTime());
}
Now in my database, it is coming as null.
Either doctrine is not executing constructor or those fields are set to null when displayed in form.
Even though I am not displaying them.
You need put the timestamp field in your FormType.
If you don't need to show it, just hide the field and set default value.
Something like that:
$builder->add('timestamp', 'hidden', array(
'data' => new \DateTime(),
));
Don't forget {{form_rest(form)}} at end of the twig template to send all hidden fields.