Forms

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Dealing with HTML forms is one of the most common - and challenging - tasks for a web developer. Symfony integrates a Form component that makes dealing with forms easy. In this article, you'll build a complex form from the ground up, learning the most important features of the form library along the way.

Note

The Symfony Form component is a standalone library that can be used outside of Symfony projects. For more information, see the Form component documentation on GitHub.

Creating a Simple Form

Suppose you're building a simple todo list application that will need to display "tasks". Because your users will need to edit and create tasks, you're going to need to build a form. But before you begin, first focus on the generic Task class that represents and stores the data for a single task:

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// src/AppBundle/Entity/Task.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

class Task
{
    protected $task;
    protected $dueDate;

    public function getTask()
    {
        return $this->task;
    }

    public function setTask($task)
    {
        $this->task = $task;
    }

    public function getDueDate()
    {
        return $this->dueDate;
    }

    public function setDueDate(\DateTime $dueDate = null)
    {
        $this->dueDate = $dueDate;
    }
}

This class is a "plain-old-PHP-object" because, so far, it has nothing to do with Symfony or any other library. It's quite simply a normal PHP object that directly solves a problem inside your application (i.e. the need to represent a task in your application). Of course, by the end of this article, you'll be able to submit data to a Task instance (via an HTML form), validate its data and persist it to the database.

Building the Form

Now that you've created a Task class, the next step is to create and render the actual HTML form. In Symfony, this is done by building a form object and then rendering it in a template. For now, this can all be done from inside a controller:

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// src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use AppBundle\Entity\Task;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\SubmitType;

class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    public function newAction(Request $request)
    {
        // creates a task and gives it some dummy data for this example
        $task = new Task();
        $task->setTask('Write a blog post');
        $task->setDueDate(new \DateTime('tomorrow'));

        $form = $this->createFormBuilder($task)
            ->add('task', TextType::class)
            // If you use PHP 5.3 or 5.4 you must use
            // ->add('task', 'Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType')
            ->add('dueDate', DateType::class)
            ->add('save', SubmitType::class, array('label' => 'Create Task'))
            ->getForm();

        return $this->render('default/new.html.twig', array(
            'form' => $form->createView(),
        ));
    }
}

Tip

This example shows you how to build your form directly in the controller. Later, in the "Forms" section, you'll learn how to build your form in a standalone class, which is recommended as your form becomes reusable.

Creating a form requires relatively little code because Symfony form objects are built with a "form builder". The form builder's purpose is to allow you to write simple form "recipes" and have it do all the heavy-lifting of actually building the form.

In this example, you've added two fields to your form - task and dueDate - corresponding to the task and dueDate properties of the Task class. You've also assigned each a "type" (e.g. TextType and DateType), represented by its fully qualified class name. Among other things, it determines which HTML form tag(s) is rendered for that field.

2.8

To denote the form type, you have to use the fully qualified class name - like TextType::class in PHP 5.5+ or Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType. Before Symfony 2.8, you could use an alias for each type like text or date. The old alias syntax will still work until Symfony 3.0. For more details, see the 2.8 UPGRADE Log.

Finally, you added a submit button with a custom label for submitting the form to the server.

2.3

Support for submit buttons was introduced in Symfony 2.3. Before that, you had to add buttons to the form's HTML manually.

Symfony comes with many built-in types that will be discussed shortly (see Forms).

Rendering the Form

Now that the form has been created, the next step is to render it. This is done by passing a special form "view" object to your template (notice the $form->createView() in the controller above) and using a set of form helper functions:

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{# app/Resources/views/default/new.html.twig #}
{{ form_start(form) }}
{{ form_widget(form) }}
{{ form_end(form) }}

Note

This example assumes that you submit the form in a "POST" request and to the same URL that it was displayed in. You will learn later how to change the request method and the target URL of the form.

That's it! Just three lines are needed to render the complete form:

form_start(form)
Renders the start tag of the form, including the correct enctype attribute when using file uploads.
form_widget(form)
Renders all the fields, which includes the field element itself, a label and any validation error messages for the field.
form_end(form)
Renders the end tag of the form and any fields that have not yet been rendered, in case you rendered each field yourself. This is useful for rendering hidden fields and taking advantage of the automatic CSRF Protection.

See also

As easy as this is, it's not very flexible (yet). Usually, you'll want to render each form field individually so you can control how the form looks. You'll learn how to do that in the "How to Control the Rendering of a Form" section.

Before moving on, notice how the rendered task input field has the value of the task property from the $task object (i.e. "Write a blog post"). This is the first job of a form: to take data from an object and translate it into a format that's suitable for being rendered in an HTML form.

Tip

The form system is smart enough to access the value of the protected task property via the getTask() and setTask() methods on the Task class. Unless a property is public, it must have a "getter" and "setter" method so that the Form component can get and put data onto the property. For a boolean property, you can use an "isser" or "hasser" method (e.g. isPublished() or hasReminder()) instead of a getter (e.g. getPublished() or getReminder()).

Handling Form Submissions

By default, the form will submit a POST request back to the same controller that renders it.

Here, the second job of a form is to translate user-submitted data back to the properties of an object. To make this happen, the submitted data from the user must be written into the Form object. Add the following functionality to your controller:

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// ...
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

public function newAction(Request $request)
{
    // just setup a fresh $task object (remove the dummy data)
    $task = new Task();

    $form = $this->createFormBuilder($task)
        ->add('task', TextType::class)
        ->add('dueDate', DateType::class)
        ->add('save', SubmitType::class, array('label' => 'Create Task'))
        ->getForm();

    $form->handleRequest($request);

    if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) {
        // $form->getData() holds the submitted values
        // but, the original `$task` variable has also been updated
        $task = $form->getData();

        // ... perform some action, such as saving the task to the database
        // for example, if Task is a Doctrine entity, save it!
        // $entityManager = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        // $entityManager->persist($task);
        // $entityManager->flush();

        return $this->redirectToRoute('task_success');
    }

    return $this->render('default/new.html.twig', array(
        'form' => $form->createView(),
    ));
}

Caution

Be aware that the createView() method should be called after handleRequest() is called. Otherwise, changes done in the *_SUBMIT events aren't applied to the view (like validation errors).

2.3

The handleRequest() method was introduced in Symfony 2.3. Previously, the $request was passed to the submit() method - a strategy which is deprecated and will be removed in Symfony 3.0. For details on that method, see How to Use the submit() Function to Handle Form Submissions.

This controller follows a common pattern for handling forms and has three possible paths:

  1. When initially loading the page in a browser, the form is created and rendered. handleRequest() recognizes that the form was not submitted and does nothing. isSubmitted() returns false if the form was not submitted.
  2. When the user submits the form, handleRequest() recognizes this and immediately writes the submitted data back into the task and dueDate properties of the $task object. Then this object is validated. If it is invalid (validation is covered in the next section), isValid() returns false and the form is rendered again, but now with validation errors;

  3. When the user submits the form with valid data, the submitted data is again written into the form, but this time isValid() returns true. Now you have the opportunity to perform some actions using the $task object (e.g. persisting it to the database) before redirecting the user to some other page (e.g. a "thank you" or "success" page).

    Note

    Redirecting a user after a successful form submission prevents the user from being able to hit the "Refresh" button of their browser and re-post the data.

See also

If you need more control over exactly when your form is submitted or which data is passed to it, you can use the submit() method. Read more about it How to Use the submit() Function to Handle Form Submissions.

Form Validation

In the previous section, you learned how a form can be submitted with valid or invalid data. In Symfony, validation is applied to the underlying object (e.g. Task). In other words, the question isn't whether the "form" is valid, but whether or not the $task object is valid after the form has applied the submitted data to it. Calling $form->isValid() is a shortcut that asks the $task object whether or not it has valid data.

Validation is done by adding a set of rules (called constraints) to a class. To see this in action, add validation constraints so that the task field cannot be empty and the dueDate field cannot be empty and must be a valid DateTime object.

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// src/AppBundle/Entity/Task.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

class Task
{
    /**
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     */
    public $task;

    /**
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     * @Assert\Type("\DateTime")
     */
    protected $dueDate;
}

That's it! If you re-submit the form with invalid data, you'll see the corresponding errors printed out with the form.

Validation is a very powerful feature of Symfony and has its own dedicated article.

HTML5 Validation

Thanks to HTML5, many browsers can natively enforce certain validation constraints on the client side. The most common validation is activated by rendering a required attribute on fields that are required. For browsers that support HTML5, this will result in a native browser message being displayed if the user tries to submit the form with that field blank.

Generated forms take full advantage of this new feature by adding sensible HTML attributes that trigger the validation. The client-side validation, however, can be disabled by adding the novalidate attribute to the form tag or formnovalidate to the submit tag. This is especially useful when you want to test your server-side validation constraints, but are being prevented by your browser from, for example, submitting blank fields.

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{# app/Resources/views/default/new.html.twig #}
{{ form_start(form, {'attr': {'novalidate': 'novalidate'}}) }}
{{ form_widget(form) }}
{{ form_end(form) }}

Built-in Field Types

Symfony comes standard with a large group of field types that cover all of the common form fields and data types you'll encounter:

Text Fields

Choice Fields

Date and Time Fields

Other Fields

Field Groups

Hidden Fields

Buttons

Base Fields

You can also create your own custom field types. See How to Create a Custom Form Field Type for info.

Field Type Options

Each field type has a number of options that can be used to configure it. For example, the dueDate field is currently being rendered as 3 select boxes. However, the DateType can be configured to be rendered as a single text box (where the user would enter the date as a string in the box):

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->add('dueDate', DateType::class, array('widget' => 'single_text'))

Each field type has a number of different options that can be passed to it. Many of these are specific to the field type and details can be found in the documentation for each type.

The required Option

The most common option is the required option, which can be applied to any field. By default, the required option is set to true, meaning that HTML5-ready browsers will apply client-side validation if the field is left blank. If you don't want this behavior, either disable HTML5 validation or set the required option on your field to false:

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->add('dueDate', DateType::class, array(
    'widget' => 'single_text',
    'required' => false
))

Also note that setting the required option to true will not result in server-side validation to be applied. In other words, if a user submits a blank value for the field (either with an old browser or web service, for example), it will be accepted as a valid value unless you use Symfony's NotBlank or NotNull validation constraint.

In other words, the required option is "nice", but true server-side validation should always be used.

The label Option

The label for the form field can be set using the label option, which can be applied to any field:

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->add('dueDate', DateType::class, array(
    'widget' => 'single_text',
    'label'  => 'Due Date',
))

The label for a field can also be set in the template rendering the form, see below. If you don't need a label associated to your input, you can disable it by setting its value to false.

Field Type Guessing

Now that you've added validation metadata to the Task class, Symfony already knows a bit about your fields. If you allow it, Symfony can "guess" the type of your field and set it up for you. In this example, Symfony can guess from the validation rules that both the task field is a normal TextType field and the dueDate field is a DateType field:

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public function newAction()
{
    $task = new Task();

    $form = $this->createFormBuilder($task)
        ->add('task')
        ->add('dueDate', null, array('widget' => 'single_text'))
        ->add('save', SubmitType::class)
        ->getForm();
}

The "guessing" is activated when you omit the second argument to the add() method (or if you pass null to it). If you pass an options array as the third argument (done for dueDate above), these options are applied to the guessed field.

Caution

If your form uses a specific validation group, the field type guesser will still consider all validation constraints when guessing your field types (including constraints that are not part of the validation group(s) being used).

Field Type Options Guessing

In addition to guessing the "type" for a field, Symfony can also try to guess the correct values of a number of field options.

Tip

When these options are set, the field will be rendered with special HTML attributes that provide for HTML5 client-side validation. However, it doesn't generate the equivalent server-side constraints (e.g. Assert\Length). And though you'll need to manually add your server-side validation, these field type options can then be guessed from that information.

required
The required option can be guessed based on the validation rules (i.e. is the field NotBlank or NotNull) or the Doctrine metadata (i.e. is the field nullable). This is very useful, as your client-side validation will automatically match your validation rules.
maxlength
If the field is some sort of text field, then the maxlength option attribute can be guessed from the validation constraints (if Length or Range is used) or from the Doctrine metadata (via the field's length).

Caution

These field options are only guessed if you're using Symfony to guess the field type (i.e. omit or pass null as the second argument to add()).

If you'd like to change one of the guessed values, you can override it by passing the option in the options field array:

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->add('task', null, array('attr' => array('maxlength' => 4)))

Creating Form Classes

As you've seen, a form can be created and used directly in a controller. However, a better practice is to build the form in a separate, standalone PHP class, which can then be reused anywhere in your application. Create a new class that will house the logic for building the task form:

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// src/AppBundle/Form/TaskType.php
namespace AppBundle\Form;

use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\SubmitType;

class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add('task')
            ->add('dueDate', null, array('widget' => 'single_text'))
            ->add('save', SubmitType::class)
        ;
    }
}

This new class contains all the directions needed to create the task form. It can be used to quickly build a form object in the controller:

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// src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
use AppBundle\Form\TaskType;

public function newAction()
{
    $task = ...;
    $form = $this->createForm(TaskType::class, $task);

    // ...
}

Placing the form logic into its own class means that the form can be easily reused elsewhere in your project. This is the best way to create forms, but the choice is ultimately up to you.

Setting the data_class

Every form needs to know the name of the class that holds the underlying data (e.g. AppBundle\Entity\Task). Usually, this is just guessed based off of the object passed to the second argument to createForm() (i.e. $task). Later, when you begin embedding forms, this will no longer be sufficient. So, while not always necessary, it's generally a good idea to explicitly specify the data_class option by adding the following to your form type class:

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// src/AppBundle/Form/TaskType.php
use AppBundle\Entity\Task;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;

// ...
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
    $resolver->setDefaults(array(
        'data_class' => Task::class,
    ));
}

Tip

When mapping forms to objects, all fields are mapped. Any fields on the form that do not exist on the mapped object will cause an exception to be thrown.

In cases where you need extra fields in the form (for example: a "do you agree with these terms" checkbox) that will not be mapped to the underlying object, you need to set the mapped option to false:

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use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;

public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
    $builder
        ->add('task')
        ->add('dueDate')
        ->add('agreeTerms', CheckboxType::class, array('mapped' => false))
        ->add('save', SubmitType::class)
    ;
}

Additionally, if there are any fields on the form that aren't included in the submitted data, those fields will be explicitly set to null.

The field data can be accessed in a controller with:

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$form->get('agreeTerms')->getData();

In addition, the data of an unmapped field can also be modified directly:

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$form->get('agreeTerms')->setData(true);

Note

The form name is automatically generated from the type class name. If you want to modify it, use the createNamed() method. You can even suppress the name completely by setting it to an empty string.

Final Thoughts

When building forms, keep in mind that the first goal of a form is to translate data from an object (Task) to an HTML form so that the user can modify that data. The second goal of a form is to take the data submitted by the user and to re-apply it to the object.

There's a lot more to learn and a lot of powerful tricks in the form system.

Learn more

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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