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  3. Reference
  4. Types
  5. TimeType Field
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Table of Contents

  • Basic Usage
  • Field Options
    • choice_translation_domain
    • placeholder
    • hours
    • html5
    • input
    • minutes
    • model_timezone
    • seconds
    • view_timezone
    • widget
    • with_minutes
    • with_seconds
  • Overridden Options
    • by_reference
    • compound
    • data_class
    • error_bubbling
  • Inherited Options
    • data
    • disabled
    • error_mapping
    • help
    • inherit_data
    • invalid_message
    • invalid_message_parameters
    • mapped
  • Form Variables

TimeType Field

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Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 4.1, which is no longer maintained.

Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 6.2 (the current stable version).

TimeType Field

A field to capture time input.

This can be rendered as a text field, a series of text fields (e.g. hour, minute, second) or a series of select fields. The underlying data can be stored as a DateTime object, a string, a timestamp or an array.

Underlying Data Type can be DateTime, string, timestamp, or array (see the input option)
Rendered as can be various tags (see below)
Options
  • choice_translation_domain
  • placeholder
  • hours
  • html5
  • input
  • minutes
  • model_timezone
  • seconds
  • view_timezone
  • widget
  • with_minutes
  • with_seconds
Overridden options
  • by_reference
  • compound
  • data_class
  • error_bubbling
Inherited Options
  • data
  • disabled
  • error_mapping
  • help
  • inherit_data
  • invalid_message
  • invalid_message_parameters
  • mapped
Parent type FormType
Class TimeType

Basic Usage

This field type is highly configurable, but easy to use. The most important options are input and widget.

Suppose that you have a startTime field whose underlying time data is a DateTime object. The following configures the TimeType for that field as two different choice fields:

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TimeType;
// ...

$builder->add('startTime', TimeType::class, [
    'input'  => 'datetime',
    'widget' => 'choice',
]);

The input option must be changed to match the type of the underlying date data. For example, if the startTime field's data were a unix timestamp, you'd need to set input to timestamp:

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TimeType;
// ...

$builder->add('startTime', TimeType::class, [
    'input'  => 'timestamp',
    'widget' => 'choice',
]);

The field also supports an array and string as valid input option values.

Field Options

choice_translation_domain

type: string, boolean or null

This option determines if the choice values should be translated and in which translation domain.

The values of the choice_translation_domain option can be true (reuse the current translation domain), false (disable translation), null (uses the parent translation domain or the default domain) or a string which represents the exact translation domain to use.

placeholder

type: string | array

If your widget option is set to choice, then this field will be represented as a series of select boxes. When the placeholder value is a string, it will be used as the blank value of all select boxes:

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$builder->add('startTime', 'time', [
    'placeholder' => 'Select a value',
]);

Alternatively, you can use an array that configures different placeholder values for the hour, minute and second fields:

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$builder->add('startTime', 'time', [
    'placeholder' => [
        'hour' => 'Hour', 'minute' => 'Minute', 'second' => 'Second',
    ]
]);

hours

type: array default: 0 to 23

List of hours available to the hours field type. This option is only relevant when the widget option is set to choice.

html5

type: boolean default: true

If this is set to true (the default), it'll use the HTML5 type (date, time or datetime) to render the field. When set to false, it'll use the text type.

This is useful when you want to use a custom JavaScript datepicker, which often requires a text type instead of an HTML5 type.

input

type: string default: datetime

The format of the input data - i.e. the format that the date is stored on your underlying object. Valid values are:

  • string (e.g. 12:17:26)
  • datetime (a DateTime object)
  • datetime_immutable (a DateTimeImmutable object)
  • array (e.g. ['hour' => 12, 'minute' => 17, 'second' => 26])
  • timestamp (e.g. 1307232000)

The value that comes back from the form will also be normalized back into this format.

minutes

type: array default: 0 to 59

List of minutes available to the minutes field type. This option is only relevant when the widget option is set to choice.

model_timezone

type: string default: system default timezone

Timezone that the input data is stored in. This must be one of the PHP supported timezones.

seconds

type: array default: 0 to 59

List of seconds available to the seconds field type. This option is only relevant when the widget option is set to choice.

view_timezone

type: string default: system default timezone

Timezone for how the data should be shown to the user (and therefore also the data that the user submits). This must be one of the PHP supported timezones.

widget

type: string default: choice

The basic way in which this field should be rendered. Can be one of the following:

  • choice: renders one, two (default) or three select inputs (hour, minute, second), depending on the with_minutes and with_seconds options.
  • text: renders one, two (default) or three text inputs (hour, minute, second), depending on the with_minutes and with_seconds options.
  • single_text: renders a single input of type time. User's input will be validated against the form hh:mm (or hh:mm:ss if using seconds).

Caution

Combining the widget type single_text and the with_minutes option set to false can cause unexpected behavior in the client as the input type time might not support selecting an hour only.

with_minutes

type: boolean default: true

Whether or not to include minutes in the input. This will result in an additional input to capture minutes.

with_seconds

type: boolean default: false

Whether or not to include seconds in the input. This will result in an additional input to capture seconds.

Overridden Options

by_reference

default: false

The DateTime classes are treated as immutable objects.

compound

type: boolean default: false

This option specifies whether the type contains child types or not. This option is managed internally for built-in types, so there is no need to configure it explicitly.

data_class

type: string default: null

The internal normalized representation of this type is an array, not a \DateTime object. Therefore, the data_class option is initialized to null to avoid the FormType object from initializing it to \DateTime.

error_bubbling

default: false

Inherited Options

These options inherit from the FormType:

data

type: mixed default: Defaults to field of the underlying structure.

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

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\HiddenType;
// ...

$builder->add('token', HiddenType::class, [
    'data' => 'abcdef',
]);

Caution

The data option always overrides the value taken from the domain data (object) when rendering. This means the object value is also overriden when the form edits an already persisted object, causing it to lose its persisted value when the form is submitted.

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.

error_mapping

type: array default: []

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 configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
    $resolver->setDefaults([
        'error_mapping' => [
            '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 right side contains simply the names of fields in the form.

By default, errors for any property that is not mapped will bubble up to the parent form. You can use the dot (.) on the left side to map errors of all unmapped properties to a particular field. For instance, to map all these errors to the city field, use:

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$resolver->setDefaults([
    'error_mapping' => [
        '.' => 'city',
    ],
]);

help

type: string default: null

Allows you to define a help message for the form field, which by default is rendered below the field.

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$builder->add('zip_code', null, [
    'help' => 'The ZIP/Postal code for your credit card\'s billing address.',
]);

inherit_data

type: boolean default: false

This option determines if the form will inherit data from its parent form. This can be useful if you have a set of fields that are duplicated across multiple forms. See How to Reduce Code Duplication with "inherit_data".

Caution

When a field has the inherit_data option set, it uses the data of the parent form as is. This means that Data Transformers won't be applied to that field.

invalid_message

type: string default: This value is not valid

This is the validation error message that's used if the data entered into this field doesn't make sense (i.e. fails validation).

This might happen, for example, if the user enters a nonsense string into a TimeType field that cannot be converted into a real time or if the user enters a string (e.g. apple) into a number field.

Normal (business logic) validation (such as when setting a minimum length for a field) should be set using validation messages with your validation rules (reference).

invalid_message_parameters

type: array default: []

When setting the invalid_message option, you may need to include some variables in the string. This can be done by adding placeholders to that option and including the variables in this option:

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$builder->add('some_field', SomeFormType::class, [
    // ...
    'invalid_message' => 'You entered an invalid value, it should include %num% letters',
    'invalid_message_parameters' => ['%num%' => 6],
]);

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.

Form Variables

Variable Type Usage
widget mixed The value of the widget option.
with_minutes boolean The value of the with_minutes option.
with_seconds boolean The value of the with_seconds option.
type string Only present when widget is single_text and HTML5 is activated, contains the input type to use (datetime, date or time).
This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
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