Editing Forms With Checkboxes For Each Entity in Symfony

[[Category:Symfony]] [[Category:PHP]] [[Category:Web Development]]
== Goal ==

To display a list of records, select the records with checkboxes, then apply a batch update to the records when the form is submitted.<ref>[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14638794/build-a-form-having-a-checkbox-for-each-entity-in-a-doctrine-collection#answer-14653394 Build a Form Having a Checkbox For Each Entity in a Doctrine Collection], Stackoverflow<br />Take note of the following answer that points out how to correctly access the collection in the form data with the current version of Symfony.</ref>

== Form class ==

<syntaxhighlight lang="php" highlight="9,15-19,27,33">
// src/AppBundle/Form/Type/PendingTutorialOptionType.php

// ...

use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface;

class PendingTutorialOptionType extends AbstractType
{
	public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
	{
		$builder->add('tutorialId', 'entity', array(
			'required' => false,
			'class' => 'AppBundle:TutorialTemp',
			'property' => 'id',
			'property_path' => '[id]',
			'multiple' => true,
			'expanded' => true
		));
		$builder->add('update', 'submit', array('label' => 'save selected'));
    }

    public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults(array(
            'data_class' => null
        ));
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return 'pending_tutorials';
    }
}
</syntaxhighlight>

* In the `buildForm()` routine,
** Use `entity` as the field type.
** Assign the entity type with the `class` option.
** The `property` and `property_path` options assign the id field of the entity to the checkbox elements.
** `multiple` and `expanded` options set to `true` cause the form to render with a series of checkboxes as opposed to text fields (or dropdowns if the field type was `choice`).
* Important to set `data_class` to `null` in `setDefaultOptions()`.
* Value returned by `getName()` is used to identify the form in the Twig template and to collect the form data after it is submitted.

== Controller ==

<syntaxhighlight lang="php" highlight="">
// src\AppBundle\Controller\DefaultController.php

//...
	public function pendingAction(Request $request)
	{
		// get all the available options
		$pending_options = $this->get('app.pending_tutorial_options')
			->getTutorialOptionsList();

		// get a form object, passing it the available options
		$form = $this->createForm(new PendingTutorialOptionType(), $pending_options);

		// process form submission
		$form->handleRequest($request);

		// check if form data was submitted
		if ($form->isValid()) {
			
			// collect selected entities from form data
			$data = $form['tutorialId']->getData();

			$selected_ids = array();
			foreach($data as $tutorial) {
				// $data is a collection of PendingTutorial objects with all their data
				array_push($selected_ids, $tutorial->getId();
			}

			// do something with the matching records...
// ...
</syntaxhighlight>

`$form->getData()` returns a collection of all the available options in the form. `$form['tutorialId']->getData()` returns the selected options as entity objects.

'''''N.B.''' I was having difficulty with `isValid()` because I was manually inserting the submit buttons in the form, with a name value of `form[update]`. The form class returns `pending_options` as its name; the correct value for the submit button's name should have been `pending_options[update]`.''

== Template ==

<syntaxhighlight lang="twig">
{{ form_start(form) }}
{{ form_errors(form) }}
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-default" name="form[update]">save selected</button>
{% for tutorial in tutorials %}
{{ form_widget(form.tutorialId[loop.index0] ) }}
{% endfor %}
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-default" name="form[update]">save selected</button>
{% do form.update.setRendered %}{# compensates for manually inserting this multiple times in the form #}
{{ form_end(form) }}
</syntaxhighlight>

# The checkboxes are rendered with `form_widget()`.
## `tutorialId` corresponds to the index of the checkbox collection added to the form builder object.
## The individual checkboxes in the collection are accessed through a numeric index. Twig provides the `loop.index0` helper.
# The html for the submit buttons are is manually inserted into the template. The Symfony helper functions will only render a form element once to avoid duplicate `id` values.
# `form_end()` will render any fields that have not explicitly rendered in the form already. `form.update.setRendered` prevents this.

== Processing the form data ==

After the call to `$form['tutorialId']->getData()`, the submitted form data will be accessible through a Doctrine ArrayCollection of entity objects:

<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
object(Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection)[1583]
      private '_elements' => 
        array (size=6)
          0 => 
            object(AppBundle\Entity\PendingTutorial)[652]
            ...
          1 => 
            object(AppBundle\Entity\PendingTutorial)[660]
            ...
          2 => 
            object(AppBundle\Entity\PendingTutorial)[664]
            ...
</syntaxhighlight>

== Examples ==

* [http://tutorials.dbarchowsky.com/app_dev.php/pending Pending Tutorials], Tutorial Database

== Notes ==
<references />