CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpsymfonydoctrinesymfony-forms
dyelawn
dyelawn

Reputation: 760

Symfony2 Form Generation from Vendor Classes

Working with Symfony2 and trying to figure out how best to incorporate Vendor libraries. Calling vendor library methods is very easy using the routing configs: use the appropriate namespace, generate the class name, the method to call, and the arguments from a couple path components and query vars, voila, instant integration.

I'm having trouble with forms, though. My goal seems like it should be very easy. I want to make forms in Symfony2 from vendor classes. As a specific example, consider the google-api-php-client. It seems like ->createForm() would work best, because it bridges to the ORM and validation so nicely. However, it relies on a a MyBundle\Form\ThingType file and class. To create this class, I need an entity within my bundle. I can't (or haven't been able to figure out how to) just use existing "Entities" from vendor libraries. Creating the "Entity" in the Symfony nomenclature when a "Model" already exists in the API lingo seems to be inflexible and very un-D.R.Y.

The other method I've gotten to work is using

$formBuilder = $this->createFormBuilder(new GoogleApi\Contrib\Event);

then

foreach(get_object_vars($event) as $prop) { $formBuilder->add($prop); }

but this does not utilize the seemingly ready-made bridge between the API documentation and the built-in validation tools, and it also means each individual data type is going to have to be declared individual or array to decide whether to include a collection of class-based forms or a single, class-based form.

In short, I want to use the properties and dataType information available in the API, and, if necessary, the Resource representations like this one to create a simple function (like my call function) for creating nested, self-validating forms for the classes in the Google API. I want to accomplish this without creating a bunch of "Entities" and "FormTypes" that simply rewrite what is already written in the library.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 301

Answers (1)

qooplmao
qooplmao

Reputation: 17759

Did the vendor library not have any installation details? You should generally calls vendor things from the controller using service calls like $this->get('vendor.name.form_object') rather than calling the class at the service will include any needed dependencies.

Also the entity that you would create in your bundle would only be the basic entity that would then extend their premade abstract classes. For example (taken from https://github.com/FriendsOfSymfony/FOSUserBundle)

<?php
// src/Acme/UserBundle/Entity/User.php

namespace Acme\UserBundle\Entity;

use FOS\UserBundle\Entity\User as BaseUser;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\Table(name="fos_user")
 */
class User extends BaseUser
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    protected $id;

    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
        // your own logic
    }
}

If you want to add any of your own entity items then you can do it in this, but still keep the methods and properties from the base entity/model.

Upvotes: 1

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