Symfony2 create a form type to add multiple records of the same type

Question

I need to create a form type that will create multiple records of a certain Entity.

I figured out to create a parent Form Type and then add a collection inside. This parent Type isn't bind to any entity, but child Type is. The problem is, that when I process the request, I get an empty data object.

Here is my parent Type:

class ChallengeCollectionType extends AbstractType {

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder->add('email_invitations', CollectionType::class, [
            'entry_type' => EmailInvitationType::class
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults(array(
            'csrf_protection'   => false
        ));
    }

}

My Child Type:

class EmailInvitationType extends AbstractType {

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder->add('email', EmailType::class);
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults(array(
            'data_class'        => Challenge::class,
            'csrf_protection'   => false
        ));
    }

}

Here is how I process my data in Controller:

public function inviteEmailAction(Request $request){

        $form = $this->createForm(ChallengeCollectionType::class);

        $form->handleRequest($request);

        dump($form->getData());
        dump($form->get('email_invitations')->getData());
        die();
}

I submit data in a POST request (this is API and there's no HTML form) like this:

challenge_collection[email_invitations][0][email] = "email@address.com"
challenge_collection[email_invitations][1][email] = "address@email.com"

And Controller returns empty [] for all dumps.

I've actually found a workaround, but it looks bad:

        $data = ['email_invitations' => [new Challenge(), new Challenge()]];        

        $form = $this->createForm(ChallengeCollectionType::class, $data);

        $form->handleRequest($request);

And this will work, so I have to send an array of empty objects of the type of the Entity to get request processed.

Or even this way:

    $data = ['email_invitations' => []];

    if(!empty($request->request->get('challenge_collection'))){
        if(!empty($request->request->get('challenge_collection')['email_invitations'])){
            for($i = 0; $i < count($request->request->get('challenge_collection')['email_invitations']); $i ++){
                $data['email_invitations'][] = new Challenge();
            }
        }
    }

There should be a better way to do it, please help me to find it.

Answer 1

You should try using allow_add and allow_delete options in collection field type. See the Collection field type documentation

Also, this is important for parent entity to have an mapped-by association with child entity, which would get you child objects in an ArrayCollection object in controller.

Further, if you want to save/remove them automatically as per the request, you need to implement a 'by_reference false and set association with cascade-persist and cascade-remove`.

I have used collection field type with API numerous times, and it worked like charm. Let me know if you need further explanation.

Answer 2

Maybe you should try in your controller something like :

$invitations = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('yourInvitationEntityClass')->findAll());         
$form = $this->createForm(ChallengeCollectionType::class, $invitations );

You could find explanations here :

http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/form_collections.html

One form with all row of one entity