1. Home
  2. Documentation
  3. Reference
  4. Types
  5. file Field Type
WARNING: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.1 which is not maintained anymore. Consider upgrading your projects to Symfony 5.0.

file Field Type

2.1 version
Maintained
3.4 4.4 5.0 current 5.1 5.2 master
Unmaintained
2.0 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3

file Field Type

The file type represents a file input in your form.

Rendered as input file field
Inherited options
Parent type form
Class FileType

Basic Usage

Say you have this form definition:

1
$builder->add('attachment', 'file');

Caution

Don't forget to add the enctype attribute in the form tag: <form action="#" method="post" {{ form_enctype(form) }}>.

When the form is submitted, the attachment field will be an instance of UploadedFile. It can be used to move the attachment file to a permanent location:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\File\UploadedFile;

public function uploadAction()
{
    // ...

    if ($form->isValid()) {
        $someNewFilename = ...

        $form['attachment']->getData()->move($dir, $someNewFilename);

        // ...
    }

    // ...
}

The move() method takes a directory and a file name as its arguments. You might calculate the filename in one of the following ways:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
// use the original file name
$file->move($dir, $file->getClientOriginalName());

// compute a random name and try to guess the extension (more secure)
$extension = $file->guessExtension();
if (!$extension) {
    // extension cannot be guessed
    $extension = 'bin';
}
$file->move($dir, rand(1, 99999).'.'.$extension);

Using the original name via getClientOriginalName() is not safe as it could have been manipulated by the end-user. Moreover, it can contain characters that are not allowed in file names. You should sanitize the name before using it directly.

Read the cookbook for an example of how to manage a file upload associated with a Doctrine entity.

Inherited options

These options inherit from the field type:

required

type: Boolean default: true

If true, an HTML5 required attribute will be rendered. The corresponding label will also render with a required class.

This is superficial and independent from validation. At best, if you let Symfony guess your field type, then the value of this option will be guessed from your validation information.

label

type: string default: The label is "guessed" from the field name

Sets the label that will be used when rendering the field. The label can also be directly set inside the template:

1
{{ form_label(form.name, 'Your name') }}

read_only

New in version 2.1: The read_only option was changed in 2.1 to render as a readonly HTML attribute. Previously, it rendered as a disabled attribute. Use the disabled option if you need the old behavior.

type: Boolean default: false

If this option is true, the field will be rendered with the readonly attribute so that the field is not editable.

disabled

New in version 2.1: The disabled option is new in version 2.1

type: boolean default: false

If you don't want a user to modify the value of a field, you can set the disabled option to true. Any submitted value will be ignored.

error_bubbling

type: Boolean default: false unless the form is compound

If true, any errors for this field will be passed to the parent field or form. For example, if set to true on a normal field, any errors for that field will be attached to the main form, not to the specific field.

New in version 2.1: The error_mapping option is new to Symfony 2.1.

error_mapping

type: array default: empty

This option allows you to modify the target of a validation error.

Imagine you have a custom method named matchingCityAndZipCode that validates whether the city and zip code match. Unfortunately, there is no "matchingCityAndZipCode" field in your form, so all that Symfony can do is display the error on top of the form.

With customized error mapping, you can do better: map the error to the city field so that it displays above it:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver)
{
    $resolver->setDefaults(array(
        'error_mapping' => array(
            'matchingCityAndZipCode' => 'city',
        ),
    ));
}

Here are the rules for the left and the right side of the mapping:

  • The left side contains property paths.
  • If the violation is generated on a property or method of a class, its path is simply "propertyName".
  • If the violation is generated on an entry of an array or ArrayAccess object, the property path is [indexName].
  • You can construct nested property paths by concatenating them, separating properties by dots. For example: addresses[work].matchingCityAndZipCode
  • The left side of the error mapping also accepts a dot ., which refers to the field itself. That means that any error added to the field is added to the given nested field instead.
  • The right side contains simply the names of fields in the form.

mapped

type: boolean

If you wish the field to be ignored when reading or writing to the object, you can set the mapped option to false.

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