How to Choose Validation Groups Based on the Submitted Data

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 2.x, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.2 (the current stable version).

If you need some advanced logic to determine the validation groups (e.g. based on submitted data), you can set the validation_groups option to an array callback:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
        use AppBundle\Entity\Client;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;

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

This will call the static method determineValidationGroups() on the Client class after the form is submitted, but before validation is executed. The Form object is passed as an argument to that method (see next example). You can also define whole logic inline by using a Closure:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
        use AppBundle\Entity\Client;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;

// ...
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
    $resolver->setDefaults(array(
        'validation_groups' => function (FormInterface $form) {
            $data = $form->getData();

            if (Client::TYPE_PERSON == $data->getType()) {
                return array('person');
            }

            return array('company');
        },
    ));
}
    

Using the validation_groups option overrides the default validation group which is being used. If you want to validate the default constraints of the entity as well you have to adjust the option as follows:

        1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
        use AppBundle\Entity\Client;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;

// ...
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
    $resolver->setDefaults(array(
        'validation_groups' => function (FormInterface $form) {
            $data = $form->getData();

            if (Client::TYPE_PERSON == $data->getType()) {
                return array('Default', 'person');
            }

            return array('Default', 'company');
        },
    ));
}
    

You can find more information about how the validation groups and the default constraints work in the article about validation groups.

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

TOC

Version