Symfony 2 Form

NOTE: Tested on Symfony2 PR12. Might not work on later releases!

If you want to use forms in Symfony 2 project there is already prepared system for that.

First in ‘Yourname/SomethingBundle/Forms’ folder create class like this:

<?php
 
namespace Surgeworks\AdminBundle\Forms;
 
use Symfony\Component\Form\Form;
use Symfony\Component\Form\TextField;
use Symfony\Component\Form\HiddenField;
 
//form for Create and update information about languages
class LanguageForm extends Form{
 
    protected function configure() {
        $this->add(new TextField('language_name',  array('max_length'=>50, 'required' => true)));
        $this->add(new TextField('language_symbol',  array('max_length'=>10, 'required' => true)));
        $this->addOption('name', 'adminForm');
    }
}

then the form is ready for using inside controller:

    /**
     * @extra:Route("/admin/languages/add_new", name="_admin_languages_add")
     * @extra:Template
     */
    public function addAction() {
 
        $form = LanguageForm::create($this->get('form.context'), 'adminForm');

After that in the same controller action bind form to your existing Entity:

$request = $this->get('Request');
            $form->bind($request, $language);

Attention: make sure that form field names is same like your Entity properties names!

One little tip: When field names in Entity class contain _ (underscore) character, make sure to remove that character in setter and getter function names, for example:

//contains underscore character like fieldname in database
protected $status_id;
//theese methods must be without that character
    public function getStatusId() {
        return $this->status_id;
    }
    public function setStatusId($status_id) {
        $this->status_id = $status_id;
    }

For displaying form in the template there are several ways, end one of them is:

        <form action="#" method="post" id="adminForm" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded">
    {{ form_errors(form) }}
    {% for field in form %}
        {% if not field.ishidden %}
            <div class="formitem">
            {{ form_errors(field) }}
            {{ form_label(field) }}
            {{ form_field(field) }}
            </div>
        {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
{{ form_hidden(form) }}
                <input type="submit" value="submit"/>
        </form>

In the next article of Symfony 2 series I will write about validating form’s data in Symfony 2.