Symfony 2 forms: array of entities - php

Question

I am trying to build a form for multiple entities. Let me first introduce some sample classes:
For clarity I do not show all annotations or abbreviate them, and I do not show the use or namespace commands.
/**
* The Entity class
* #ORM ... mapping to ORM
*/
class EntityA {
/**
* #var ModelArray
* #ORM\Column(name="...", type="object")
*/
private $modelArray;
// Getters and Setters, default constructor
}
/**
* An array Wrapper, keeping the array always unique, sorting it by criteria etc.
* #ORM(...)
*/
class ModelArray {
/**
* #var array<A>
*/
private $array;
// Getter, Adder, Remover, Constructor, other private logic
}
Notice especially that the class ModelArray stores only objects of a given Type A:
/**
* One more Model
*/
class A {
/**
* #var boolean
*/
private $bool;
/**
* #var string
*/
private $string;
// Getters, Setters
}
I chose this data structure, because I never need objects of A to exist outside the EntityA class, and to keep the logic out of my Entity, I chose to implement the ModelArray class in between. The EntityA class is persisted to a database, and with it the child objects.
Now I want to create a form, where I can edit the $->bool attributes of all A instances of an Array of EntityA at once.
So what I provide is array<EntityA>.
I would then proceed as follows:
//In a controller action
$data = array(
'as' => $arrayOfEntityA,
);
$form = $this->createForm(new GridType(), $data);
// Create view, render
My form type would look like this:
class GridType extends AbstractType {
public function getName() {
return 'a_grid';
}
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) {
$builder->add('as', 'collection', array(
'type' => new GridAType(),
));
}
}
And use this form type
class GridAType extends AbstractType {
public function getName() {
return 'a_grid_a';
}
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) {
$builder->add('modelArray', new ModelArrayType());
}
public function getDefaultOptions(array $options) {
return array(
'data_class' => 'EntityA',
);
}
}
With the model array type
class ModelArrayType extends AbstractType {
public function getName() {
return 'model_array';
}
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) {
// ???
}
public function getDefaultOptions(array $options) {
return array(
'data_class' => 'ModelArray',
);
}
}
Notice the // ???: I would like to only edit the boolean attribute of the As strored in the ModelArray, and I think the appropriate form type to continue would be a 'collection'. But I can't really find out how to use the array ($modelArray->array)here as a collection.
How should I do this?
An then, I'm not entirely sure if it is good practice to implement such a lot of form types just to achieve one usable form. Is there a different and better way?