Unmapped Form Fields in Symfony

Objective

Use a form class to build out a form to edit an entity.

Add fields to the form to control navigation after submitting the form, for example.

These extra fields don't have equivalents in the entity class. It cannot be used to inspect their values in the submitted form data.

Form Class

• The first two form fields added to the form builder correspond to properties of the entity class.
• The next field does not correspond to an entity class property.
  • mapped => false marks this as an unmapped field.
  • placeholder => null removes an option inserted by Symfony that explicitly sets the choice to "no choice".
  • empty_data marks the value that will be submitted if none of the choices in the form are selected.
  • expanded => true causes the "choice" field type to be rendered as a list of radio buttons.

class InvoiceType extends AbstractType 
{
	public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) 
	{
		$builder
			->add('number', 'integer', array(
				'label' => 'Invoice Number',
			))
			->add('amount', 'money', array(
				'currency'=> 'USD',
			))
			// ...
			->add('next', 'next_nav_choice', array(
				'label' => 'After saving the invoice go to:',
				'placeholder' => null,
				'required' => false,
				'choices' => array(
					'list' => 'invoice listings',
					'details' => 'view the invoice',
					'add' => 'add another invoice',
					),
				'empty_data' => array('list'),
				'expanded' => true,
				'mapped' => false,
			))
			->add('save', 'submit');
	}