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DateTimeType Field

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

This field type allows the user to modify data that represents a specific date and time (e.g. 1984-06-05 12:15:30).

Can be rendered as a text input or select tags. The underlying format of the data can be 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 single text box or three select fields
Default invalid message Please enter a valid date and time.
Legacy invalid message The value {{ value }} is not valid.
Parent type FormType
Class DateTimeType

Tip

The full list of options defined and inherited by this form type is available running this command in your app:

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# replace 'FooType' by the class name of your form type
$ php bin/console debug:form FooType

Field Options

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.

date_format

type: integer or string default: IntlDateFormatter::MEDIUM

Defines the format option that will be passed down to the date field. See the DateType's format option for more details.

date_label

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

Sets the label that will be used when rendering the date widget. Setting it to false will suppress the label:

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType;

$builder->add('startDateTime', DateTimeType::class, [
    'date_label' => 'Starts On',
]);

date_widget

type: string default: choice

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

  • choice: renders three select inputs. The order of the selects is defined in the format option.
  • text: renders a three field input of type text (month, day, year).
  • single_text: renders a single input of type date. User's input is validated based on the format option.

days

type: array default: 1 to 31

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

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'days' => range(1,31)

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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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType;

$builder->add('startDateTime', DateTimeType::class, [
    'placeholder' => 'Select a value',
]);

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

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType;

$builder->add('startDateTime', DateTimeType::class, [
    'placeholder' => [
        'year' => 'Year', 'month' => 'Month', 'day' => 'Day',
        'hour' => 'Hour', 'minute' => 'Minute', 'second' => 'Second',
    ],
]);

format

type: string default: Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType::HTML5_FORMAT

If the widget option is set to single_text, this option specifies the format of the input, i.e. how Symfony will interpret the given input as a datetime string. It defaults to the datetime local format which is used by the HTML5 datetime-local field. Keeping the default value will cause the field to be rendered as an input field with type="datetime-local". For more information on valid formats, see Date/Time Format Syntax.

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-local) 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. 2011-06-05 12:15:00)
  • datetime (a DateTime object)
  • datetime_immutable (a DateTimeImmutable object)
  • array (e.g. [2011, 06, 05, 12, 15, 0])
  • timestamp (e.g. 1307276100)

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

Caution

If timestamp is used, DateType is limited to dates between Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 UTC and Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 UTC on 32bit systems. This is due to an integer overflow bug in 32bit systems known as the Year 2038 problem.

input_format

type: string default: Y-m-d H:i:s

If the input option is set to string, this option specifies the format of the date. This must be a valid PHP date 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.

months

type: array default: 1 to 12

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

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.

time_label

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

Sets the label that will be used when rendering the time widget. Setting it to false will suppress the label:

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use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateTimeType;

$builder->add('startDateTime', DateTimeType::class, [
    'time_label' => 'Starts On',
]);

time_widget

type: string default: choice

Defines the widget option for the TimeType.

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: null

Defines the widget option for both the DateType and TimeType. This can be overridden with the date_widget and time_widget options.

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.

years

type: array default: five years before to five years after the current year

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

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

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).

Inherited Options

These options inherit from the FormType:

attr

type: array default: []

If you want to add extra attributes to an HTML field representation you can use the attr option. It's an associative array with HTML attributes as keys. This can be useful when you need to set a custom class for some widget:

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$builder->add('body', TextareaType::class, [
    'attr' => ['class' => 'tinymce'],
]);

See also

Use the row_attr option if you want to add these attributes to the form type row element.

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 overridden 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.

help

type: string or TranslatableMessage 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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use Symfony\Component\Translation\TranslatableMessage;

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

    // ...

    ->add('status', null, [
        'help' => new TranslatableMessage('order.status', ['%order_id%' => $order->getId()], 'store'),
    ])
;

5.4

Support for passing TranslatableMessage objects was introduced in Symfony 5.4.

help_attr

type: array default: []

Sets the HTML attributes for the element used to display the help message of the form field. Its value is an associative array with HTML attribute names as keys. These attributes can also be set in the template:

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{{ form_help(form.name, 'Your name', {
    'help_attr': {'class': 'CUSTOM_LABEL_CLASS'}
}) }}

help_html

type: boolean default: false

By default, the contents of the help option are escaped before rendering them in the template. Set this option to true to not escape them, which is useful when the help contains HTML elements.

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_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('someField', 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.

row_attr

type: array default: []

An associative array of the HTML attributes added to the element which is used to render the form type row:

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$builder->add('body', TextareaType::class, [
    'row_attr' => ['class' => 'text-editor', 'id' => '...'],
]);

See also

Use the attr option if you want to add these attributes to the form type widget element.

Field Variables

Variable Type Usage
widget mixed The value of the widget 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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