Symfony 2 prefilled form with data from the database - php

Question

I am trying to populate form fields with data from the database in order to edit them. I already searched on google.
Here is my controller which returns empty fields
public function userViewAction($id,Request $request){
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager()->getRepository('BFVMailingBundle:MailingList');
$user = $em->findById($id);
$form = $this->get('form.factory')->createBuilder('form',$user)
->add('unsubscribed','checkbox')
->add('name','text')
->add('givenName','text')
->add('additionalName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('familyName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('emailValue','text')
->add('language','choice',array(
'choices' => array('en_GB' => 'en_GB', 'es_ES' => 'es_ES', 'fr_FR' => 'fr_FR'),
'required' => true,
))
->add('commentary','textarea',array('required'=>false))
->add('save','submit')
->getForm();
if ($request->getMethod() == 'POST') {
$form->bindRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
// perform some action, such as save the object to the database
$em->flush();
return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('user_view',array('id'=>$id)));
}
}
and this is my template
<div class="cell">
{{ form_start(form, {'attr': {'class': 'form-horizontal'}}) }}
{{ form_end(form) }}
</div>
Did I miss something?
EDIT - READ THIS FOR THE SOLUTION
As John Noel Implied I build an externalised form with the command
php app/console doctrine:generate:form BFVMailingBundle:MailingList
my entity was MailingList instead of User
the MailingListType is a form template which is generated in BFV\MailingBundle\Form. I've added the data types myself.
<?php
namespace BFV\MailingBundle\Form;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface;
class MailingListType extends AbstractType
{
/**
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$str = date("U");
$codeValue = sha1($str);
$builder
->add('secretCode','hidden',array( 'data' => $codeValue ))
->add('name','text')
->add('givenName','text')
->add('additionalName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('familyName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('emailValue','text')
->add('language','choice',array(
'choices' => array('en_GB' => 'en_GB', 'es_ES' => 'es_ES', 'fr_FR' => 'fr_FR'),
'required' => true,
))
->add('unsubscribed','checkbox')
->add('commentary','textarea',array('required'=>false))
->add('save','submit')
;
}
/**
* #param OptionsResolverInterface $resolver
*/
public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'BFV\MailingBundle\Entity\MailingList'
));
}
/**
* #return string
*/
public function getName()
{
return 'bfv_mailingbundle_mailinglist';
}
}
In the reformated controller I add to add the the form generator the instance of MailingList $user[0] instead of $user. I read in many websites that usually you put $variable directly in the form builder but that generated the following error:
The form's view data is expected to be an instance of class
BFV\MailingBundle\Entity\MailingList, but is a(n) array. You can avoid
this error by setting the "data_class" option to null or by adding a
view transformer that transforms a(n) array to an instance of
BFV\MailingBundle\Entity\MailingList
Thus in the controller:
public function userViewAction($id,Request $request){
if (!$id) {
throw $this->createNotFoundException('No id !!');
}
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager()->getRepository('BFVMailingBundle:MailingList');
$user = $em->findById($id);
if (!$user){
throw $this->createNotFoundException('No user with the id selected');
}
$form = $this->createForm(new MailingListType(), $user[0]);
if ($request->getMethod() == 'POST') {
$form->bindRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
$em->flush();
return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('user_view',array('id'=>$id)));
}
}
return $this->render('BFVMailingBundle:Default:user_view.html.twig',array(
'user'=>$user,
'form'=>$form->createView()
));
}
Conclusion: I got the view form rendering with populated data from the database.

Answer 1

To do this you'll want to look into form classes which will then act as a view (and will also populate) the data you provide. So in your example you'd create a form class UserType:
class UserType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder
->add('unsubscribed','checkbox')
->add('name','text')
->add('givenName','text')
->add('additionalName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('familyName','text',array('required'=>false))
->add('emailValue','text')
->add('language','choice',array(
'choices' => array('en_GB' => 'en_GB', 'es_ES' => 'es_ES', 'fr_FR' => 'fr_FR'),
'required' => true,
))
->add('commentary','textarea',array('required'=>false))
->add('save','submit')
;
}
public function getName()
{
return 'user';
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'Your\Entity\Class',
));
}
}
Then within your controller you'd do something along the lines of:
$form = $this->createForm(new UserType(), $user);
Then the rest of your controller as you have. Definitely read up on form classes though as that's the starting point for a lot of the advanced functionality of Symfony forms.

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this is what makes the difference, but did you try with:
$form = $this->createFormBuilder($user)
->add(...)
->getForm()
You may also check that the User you get is correctly read from the DB.
For example:
if (!is_object($user)) {
$this->createNotFoundException('The user does not exist');
}