Get certain form inputs separately

Question

I have this form and I have to get the values of 3 fields (name and 2 dates) separately, formate the dates and put them into an arrayCollection. I only want to get these 3 fields and let the rest of the form field get inserted automatically as usual. In parallel, when I come back to edit the form, I want to know how to distribute these values to populate the form.

Answer 1

According to this documentation creating-form-classes , an attempt of solution is to do something like :

We assume that your have an entity name Article.

• Your form can be something like :

    class ArticleType extends AbstractType
    {
        public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
        {
            $builder->add('title', TextType::class)
                    ->add('author', TextType::class)
                    ->add('name', TextType::class, [
                        'mapped' => false
                    ])
                    ->add('date1', DatetimeType::class, [
                        'mapped' => false
                    ])
                    ->add('date2', DatetimeType::class, [
                        'mapped' => false
                    ]);
        }

        public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
        {
            $resolver->setDefaults([
                'data_class' => Article::class,
            ]);
        }
    }

Here there is option 'mapped' => false because you don't want to mappe it with the entity Article.

• Then in your controller, you can have something like

    /**
     * @Route("/articles", methods={"POST", "GET"}, name="app_post_article")
     */
    public function postArticle(Request $request, EntityManagerInterface $em)
    {
        $form = $this->createForm(ArticleType::class);
        $form->handleRequest($request);

        if ($request->isMethod('POST') && $form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) {
            $name = $form->get('name')->getData();
            $date1 = $form->get('date1')->getData();
            $date2 = $form->get('date2')->getData();
            //.... do something
        }
        //... Do other thing

    }

    /**
     * @Route("/articles/{id}", methods={"POST", "GET"}, name="app_edit_article")
     */
    public function editArticle(Request $request, Article $article, EntityManagerInterface $em)
    {
        $form = $this->createForm(ArticleType::class, $article);
        // $prevName, $prevDate1, $prevDate2 must be retreive first...
        $form->get('name')->setData($prevName);
        $form->get('date1')->setData($prevDate1);
        $form->get('date2')->setData($prevDate2);
        $form->handleRequest($request);

        if ($request->isMethod('POST') && $form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) {
            $name = $form->get('name')->getData();
            $date1 = $form->get('date1')->getData();
            $date2 = $form->get('date2')->getData();
            //.... do something
        }
        //... Do other thing

    }

It's just an idea.