How to Reduce Code Duplication with "inherit_data"
Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 6.3, which is no longer maintained.
Read the updated version of this page for Symfony 7.2 (the current stable version).
The inherit_data
form field option can be very useful when you have some
duplicated fields in different entities. For example, imagine you have two
entities, a Company
and a Customer
:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
// src/Entity/Company.php
namespace App\Entity;
class Company
{
private string $name;
private string $website;
private string $address;
private string $zipcode;
private string $city;
private string $country;
}
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
// src/Entity/Customer.php
namespace App\Entity;
class Customer
{
private string $firstName;
private string $lastName;
private string $address;
private string $zipcode;
private string $city;
private string $country;
}
As you can see, each entity shares a few of the same fields: address
,
zipcode
, city
, country
.
Start with building two forms for these entities, CompanyType
and CustomerType
:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
// src/Form/Type/CompanyType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
class CompanyType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options): void
{
$builder
->add('name', TextType::class)
->add('website', TextType::class);
}
}
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
// src/Form/Type/CustomerType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
class CustomerType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options): void
{
$builder
->add('firstName', TextType::class)
->add('lastName', TextType::class);
}
}
Instead of including the duplicated fields address
, zipcode
, city
and country
in both of these forms, create a third form called LocationType
for that:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
// src/Form/Type/LocationType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextareaType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
class LocationType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options): void
{
$builder
->add('address', TextareaType::class)
->add('zipcode', TextType::class)
->add('city', TextType::class)
->add('country', TextType::class);
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver): void
{
$resolver->setDefaults([
'inherit_data' => true,
]);
}
}
The location form has an interesting option set, namely inherit_data
. This
option lets the form inherit its data from its parent form. If embedded in
the company form, the fields of the location form will access the properties of
the Company
instance. If embedded in the customer form, the fields will
access the properties of the Customer
instance instead. Convenient, eh?
Note
Instead of setting the inherit_data
option inside LocationType
, you
can also (just like with any option) pass it in the third argument of
$builder->add()
.
Finally, make this work by adding the location form to your two original forms:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
// src/Form/Type/CompanyType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
use App\Entity\Company;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
// ...
class CompanyType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options): void
{
// ...
$builder->add('foo', LocationType::class, [
'data_class' => Company::class,
]);
}
}
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
// src/Form/Type/CustomerType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
use App\Entity\Customer;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
class CustomerType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options): void
{
// ...
$builder->add('bar', LocationType::class, [
'data_class' => Customer::class,
]);
}
}
That's it! You have extracted duplicated field definitions to a separate location form that you can reuse wherever you need it.
Caution
Forms with the inherit_data
option set cannot have *_SET_DATA
event listeners.