How to Access Services or Config from Inside a Form

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.7, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.0 (the current stable version).

1) Pass Options to your Form
2) Define your Form as a Service

How to Access Services or Config from Inside a Form

Sometimes, you may need to access a service or other configuration from inside of your form class. To do this, you have 2 options:

1) Pass Options to your Form

The simplest way to pass services or configuration to your form is via form options. Suppose you need to access the doctrine.orm.entity_manager service so that you can make a query. First, allow (in fact, require) a new entity_manager option to be passed to your form:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        // src/AppBundle/Form/TaskType.php
// ...

class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
    // ...

    public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
    {
        // ...

        $resolver->setRequired('entity_manager');
    }
}
    

Now that you've done this, you must pass an entity_manager option when you create your form:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        // src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
// ...

public function newAction()
{
    $task = ...;
    $form = $this->createForm(new TaskType(), $task, array(
        'entity_manager' => $this->get('doctrine.orm.entity_manager'),
    ));

    // ...
}
    

Finally, the entity_manager option is accessible in the $options argument of your buildForm() method:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        // src/AppBundle/Form/TaskType.php
// ...

class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        /** @var \Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager $entityManager */
        $entityManager = $options['entity_manager'];
        // ...
    }

    // ...
}
    

Use this method to pass anything to your form.

2) Define your Form as a Service

Alternatively, you can define your form class as a service. This is a good idea if you want to re-use the form in several places - registering it as a service makes this easier.

Suppose you need to access the doctrine.orm.entity_manager service so that you can make a query. First, add this as an argument to your form class:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
        // src/AppBundle/Form/TaskType.php

use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
// ...

class TaskType extends AbstractType
{
    private $entityManager;

    public function __construct(EntityManager $entityManager)
    {
        $this->entityManager = $entityManager;
    }

    // ...
}
    

Next, register this as a service and tag it with form.type:

YAML
XML
PHP

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
        # src/AppBundle/Resources/config/services.yml
services:
    app.form.type.task:
        class: AppBundle\Form\TaskType
        arguments: ['@doctrine.orm.entity_manager']
        tags:
            - { name: form.type, alias: app_task }
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
        <!-- src/AppBundle/Resources/config/services.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd">

    <services>
        <service id="app.form.type.task" class="AppBundle\Form\TaskType">
            <argument type="service" id="doctrine.orm.entity_manager"/>
            <tag name="form.type" alias="app_task" />
        </service>
    </services>
</container>
    

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
        // src/AppBundle/Resources/config/services.php
use AppBundle\Form\TaskType;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Reference;

$container->register('app.form.type.task', TaskType::class)
    ->addArgument(new Reference('doctrine.orm.entity_manager'))
    ->addTag('form.type', array(
        'alias' => 'app_task',
    ));
    

That's it! Use the alias key from the tag to reference your form:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
        // src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
// ...

public function newAction()
{
    $task = ...;
    $form = $this->createForm('app_task', $task);

    // ...
}
    

Or, use the from within another form:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
        // src/AppBundle/Form/Type/ListType.php
// ...

class ListType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        // ...

        $builder->add('someTask', 'app_task');
    }
}
    