Symfony2 validation filters

Question

In my Symfony 2 application I need to filter input before passing it on to validation [1], however, I can't seem to find any system within Symfony to do this.

The type of filtering I looking for is eg to be able to filter a dash out of a specific field before validating it. Eg users can enter 123-123 but the only accepted value is 123123 . Just as I can set up validation rules with constraints, I'm looking for something similar for filters.

[1] http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/validation.html

Answer 1

Nifr's answer is good but is missing of an important alternative that, if I understand correctly your question, seems to fit perfectly your needs.

You can use a hook that is pretty much an event listener: if something happens or is going to happen, it intercepts the event and redirect it to your function.

In this case, you need a PRE_BIND hook (is deprecated since 2.3 version, now it's called PRE_SUBMIT )

Read this if you need help about

Answer 2

Either write your own Validation Assert to filter and then proxy the other validators for this purpose ...

... or one or multiple Regex Asserts .

... or use a DataTransformer to transform/filter the input.

With the DataTransformer involved you could aswell consider creating a new FieldType which renders two inputs with a seperator like the date form-field does. ( if not not used with widget => single_text )