Persist form data Symfony 2.8 - php

Question

I am new to Symfony and I follow this documentation http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/form_collections.html to build a basic embed collection form.
Follow the documentation. We have Tag and Task. Task has oneToMany relation with Tag and Tag has ManyToOne relation with Task.
I also use EntityType::class in TaskType with queryBuilder to pre-populate select list of existing Task entity in database on the form.
I have completed build the form and everything work fine. However, when i submitted form instead of using existing "Task ID",a new Task with new ID but with the same data is generated. This new task ID is assigned to new Tag entity. I would want use the existing Task ID for new Tags.
Below are my classes with the YAML file:
TaskController.php
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use AppBundle\Entity\Task;
use AppBundle\Entity\Tag;
use AppBundle\Form\Type\TaskType;
class TaskController extends Controller
{
public function newAction(Request $request)
{
$task = new Task();
// dummy code - this is here just so that the Task has some tags
// otherwise, this isn't an interesting example
$tag1 = new Tag();
$tag1->setName('tag1');
$tag1->addTask($task);
$task->getTags()->add($tag1);
$form = $this->createForm(TaskType::class, $task);
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$em->persist($task);
$em->flush();
}
return $this->render('AppBundle:Task:new.html.twig', array(
'form' => $form->createView(),
));
}
}
Tag.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
/**
* Tag
*/
class Tag
{
/**
* #var integer
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*/
private $name;
/**
* #var \AppBundle\Entity\Task
*/
private $task;
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set name
*
* #param string $name
*
* #return Tag
*/
public function setName($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get name
*
* #return string
*/
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
/**
* Set task
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Task $task
*
* #return Tag
*/
public function setTask(\AppBundle\Entity\Task $task = null)
{
$this->task = $task;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get task
*
* #return \AppBundle\Entity\Task
*/
public function getTask()
{
return $this->task;
}
public function addTask(Task $task)
{
$this->setTask($task);
}
}
TagType.php
namespace AppBundle\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
class TagType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder->add('name');
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'AppBundle\Entity\Tag',
));
}
}
Tag.orm.yml
AppBundle\Entity\Tag:
type: entity
table: null
repositoryClass: AppBundle\Repository\TagRepository
id:
id:
type: integer
id: true
generator:
strategy: AUTO
fields:
name:
type: string
length: 255
manyToOne:
task:
targetEntity: Task
inversedBy: tags
joinColumn:
name: task_id
referencedColumnName: id
cascade: [ persist ]
lifecycleCallbacks: { }
Task.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
/**
* Task
*/
class Task
{
/**
* #var integer
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*/
private $description;
/**
* #var ArrayCollection
*/
protected $tags;
public function __construct()
{
$this->tags = new ArrayCollection();
}
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set description
*
* #param string $description
*
* #return Task
*/
public function setDescription($description)
{
$this->description = $description;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get description
*
* #return string
*/
public function getDescription()
{
return $this->description;
}
/**
* Get tags
*
* #return ArrayCollection
*/
public function getTags()
{
return $this->tags;
}
public function addTag(Tag $tag)
{
$tag->addTask($this);
$this->tags->add($tag);
}
/**
* Remove tag
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tag
*/
public function removeTag(\AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tag)
{
$this->tags->removeElement($tag);
}
public function __toString()
{
return (string) $this->getDescription();
}
}
TaskType.php
namespace AppBundle\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\CollectionType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\SubmitType;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Form\Type\EntityType;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;
class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder->add('description', EntityType::class,array(
'class' => 'AppBundle:Task',
'query_builder' => function (EntityRepository $er) {
return $er->createQueryBuilder('d');
},));
$builder->add('tags', CollectionType::class, array(
'entry_type' => TagType::class,
'allow_add' => true,
'by_reference' => false,
));
$builder->add('save', SubmitType::class, array('label' => 'Save'));
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'AppBundle\Entity\Task',
));
}
}
Task.orm.yaml
AppBundle\Entity\Task:
type: entity
table: null
repositoryClass: AppBundle\Repository\TaskRepository
id:
id:
type: integer
id: true
generator:
strategy: AUTO
fields:
description:
type: string
length: 255
oneToMany:
tags:
targetEntity: Tag
mappedBy: task
cascade: [ persist ]
lifecycleCallbacks: { }

Answer 1

Oh i see the problem.
When you submit the form (and the new task with tags is saved), you display the same form, so user expect this to be "edit" form, but it is not.
The correct way how to do this, is to create new controller action for editing the task, for example editAction(), which would be similar to newAction(), only that the route would have parameter to identify the task (e.g. task_id) and in the beginning instead of creating new Task with $task = new Task(); you would fetch the task from DB, for example:
$task = $this->get("doctrine")->getManager()->getRepository("AppBundle:Task")->findOneById($task_id);
you could also reuse the same form type.
THEN, you add redirect in original newAction after entity is persisted to this new edit action:
return $this->redirectToRoute("task_edit", array("task_id" => $task->getId()));
so after submitting the add form, you would be redirected to edit action, so next time the task is changed and for is submitted, the task is updated and not created new one.

Answer 2

So what I need to do is to use $form->getData() to get submitted entities (Task and Tags) and then persist them manually to the database.
if ($form->isValid()) {
$data = $form->getData();
$description = $data->getDescription();
$tags = new ArrayCollection();
$tags = $data->getTags();
foreach ($tags as $tag) {
$tag->addTask($description);
}
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$em->persist($tag);
$em->flush();
}