Processing of non-existent collection fields in SonataAdminBundle forms - php

Question

I have an entity class ContactsPage to store some information about emails, phones etc. The problem is to get all this information into one field "contacts" in json-format defined within the ContactsPage entity:
class ContactsPage
{
...
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="contacts", type="text", nullable=true)
*/
private $contacts;
...
}
ContactsPageAdmin form constructing example for emails:
protected function configureFormFields(FormMapper $formMapper)
{
$formMapper
->add('emails', 'collection',
array(
'mapped' => false,
'required' => false,
'type' => 'text',
'allow_add' => true,
'allow_delete' => true,
)
);
}
How and where can I get this "emails" array (or collection)?
Where can I handle this array to make json and push it into "contacts" field before saving the ContactsPage entity?
Where and how I can handle "contacts" field and transfer all decoded from json information into editing form (into "emails" collection)?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Spent almost the day but found answers by myself.
First and second questions.
I have to define prePersist and preUpdate methods within the admin-class with my Entity as an argument, where i can get and handle "emails" array:
class ContactsPageAdmin extends Admin
{
...
public function prePersist($contactsPage)
{
$emails = $this->getForm()->get('emails')->getData();
$contactsPage->setContacts(json_encode($emails));
}
public function Update($contactsPage)
{
$emails = $this->getForm()->get('emails')->getData();
$contactsPage->setContacts(json_encode($emails));
}
...
}
What about third question. I just have to use $this->getSubject() to get original Entity and 'data' property to load needed data:
class ContactsPageAdmin extends Admin
{
...
protected function configureFormFields(FormMapper $formMapper)
$entity = $this->getSubject(); // getting original Entity
$json = $entity->getContacts(); // field with json data
$array = json_decode($json, true);
// preparing data to fulfill necessary form fields
$array['emails'] = is_array($array['emails']) ? $array['emails'] : array();
$formMapper
->add('emails', 'collection',
array(
'mapped' => false,
'required' => false,
'type' => 'text',
'allow_add' => true,
'allow_delete' => true,
'data' => $array['emails'] // embeding prepared data into collection
)
);
}
...
}