How to Use a Form without a Data Class

In most cases, a form is tied to an object, and the fields of the form get and store their data on the properties of that object. This is exactly what you've seen so far in this article with the Task class.

But sometimes, you may just want to use a form without a class, and get back an array of the submitted data. This is actually really easy:

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// make sure you've imported the Request namespace above the class
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
// ...

public function contactAction(Request $request)
{
    $defaultData = ['message' => 'Type your message here'];
    $form = $this->createFormBuilder($defaultData)
        ->add('name', TextType::class)
        ->add('email', EmailType::class)
        ->add('message', TextareaType::class)
        ->add('send', SubmitType::class)
        ->getForm();

    $form->handleRequest($request);

    if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) {
        // data is an array with "name", "email", and "message" keys
        $data = $form->getData();
    }

    // ... render the form
}

By default, a form actually assumes that you want to work with arrays of data, instead of an object. There are exactly two ways that you can change this behavior and tie the form to an object instead:

1. Pass an object when creating the form (as the first argument to createFormBuilder() or the second argument to createForm());
2. Declare the data_class option on your form.

If you don't do either of these, then the form will return the data as an array. In this example, since $defaultData is not an object (and no data_class option is set), $form->getData() ultimately returns an array.

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$request->request->get('name');

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Length;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank;

public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
    $builder
        ->add('firstName', TextType::class, [
            'constraints' => new Length(['min' => 3]),
        ])
        ->add('lastName', TextType::class, [
            'constraints' => [
                new NotBlank(),
                new Length(['min' => 3]),
            ],
        ])
    ;
}

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new NotBlank(['groups' => ['create', 'update']]);