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Table of Contents

  • Inherited Options
    • data
    • disabled
    • empty_data
    • empty_data
    • error_bubbling
    • error_mapping
    • label
    • label_attr
    • mapped
    • max_length
    • read_only
    • required
    • trim

text Field Type

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Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.4, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.3 (the current stable version).

text Field Type

The text field represents the most basic input text field.

Rendered as input text field
Inherited options
  • data
  • disabled
  • empty_data
  • error_bubbling
  • error_mapping
  • label
  • label_attr
  • mapped
  • max_length
  • read_only
  • required
  • trim
Parent type form
Class TextType

Inherited Options

These options inherit from the form type:

data

type: mixed default: Defaults to field of the underlying object (if there is one)

When you create a form, each field initially displays the value of the corresponding property of the form's domain object (if an object is bound to the form). If you want to override the initial value for the form or just an individual field, you can set it in the data option:

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$builder->add('token', 'hidden', array(
    'data' => 'abcdef',
));

Note

The default values for form fields are taken directly from the
underlying data structure (e.g. an entity or an array).
The data option overrides this default value.

disabled

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.

empty_data

type: mixed

DEFAULT_PLACEHOLDER

This option determines what value the field will return when the submitted value is empty.

But you can customize this to your needs. For example, if you want the gender choice field to be explicitly set to null when no value is selected, you can do it like this:

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$builder->add('gender', 'choice', array(
    'choices' => array(
        'm' => 'Male',
        'f' => 'Female'
    ),
    'required'    => false,
    'empty_value' => 'Choose your gender',
    'empty_data'  => null
));

Note

If you want to set the empty_data option for your entire form class, see the cookbook article How to Configure empty Data for a Form Class.

:end-before: DEFAULT_PLACEHOLDER

The default value is '' (the empty string).

empty_data

type: mixed

DEFAULT_PLACEHOLDER

This option determines what value the field will return when the submitted value is empty.

But you can customize this to your needs. For example, if you want the gender choice field to be explicitly set to null when no value is selected, you can do it like this:

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$builder->add('gender', 'choice', array(
    'choices' => array(
        'm' => 'Male',
        'f' => 'Female'
    ),
    'required'    => false,
    'empty_value' => 'Choose your gender',
    'empty_data'  => null
));

Note

If you want to set the empty_data option for your entire form class, see the cookbook article How to Configure empty Data for a Form Class.

:start-after: DEFAULT_PLACEHOLDER

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.

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:

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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.

label

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

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

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{{ form_label(form.name, 'Your name') }}
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echo $view['form']->label(
    $form['name'],
    'Your name'
);

label_attr

type: array default: array()

Sets the HTML attributes for the <label> element, which will be used when rendering the label for the field. It's an associative array with HTML attribute as a key. This attributes can also be directly set inside the template:

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{{ form_label(form.name, 'Your name', {'label_attr': {'class': 'CUSTOM_LABEL_CLASS'}}) }}
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echo $view['form']->label(
    $form['name'],
    'Your name',
    array('label_attr' => array('class' => 'CUSTOM_LABEL_CLASS'))
);

mapped

type: boolean default: true

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

max_length

type: integer default: null

If this option is not null, an attribute maxlength is added, which
is used by some browsers to limit the amount of text in a field.

This is just a browser validation, so data must still be validated
server-side.

read_only

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.

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.

Note

The required option also affects how empty data for each field is handled. For more details, see the empty_data option.

trim

type: Boolean default: true

If true, the whitespace of the submitted string value will be stripped via the trim() function when the data is bound. This guarantees that if a value is submitted with extra whitespace, it will be removed before the value is merged back onto the underlying object.

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