How to 'validate' a Symfony form in steps - instead of calling $form->isValid()

Question

I am using Symfony 1.3.6 on Ubuntu.

I have a form with a lot of fields on it - rather than showing all the fields in one go (which may intimidate the user), I want to br

Answer 1

I would utilize a different method to implement multi part forms in Symfony. Hopefully, the following shell is enough to get you started.

Step 1: Add a stage widget to your form

public function configure()
{
  $this->setWidget('stage', new sfWidgetFormInputHidden(array('default' => 1));
  $this->setValidator('stage', new sfValidatorFormInteger(array('min' => 1, 'max' => $maxStages, 'required' => true));
}

Step 2: Add some information about the stages to your form

protected $stages = array(
  1 => array('stage1field1', 'stage1field2',
  2 => array('stage2field1', ... //etc for as many stages you have
);

Step 3: Add a configure as stage method to your form

public function configureAsStage($currentStage)
{
  foreach($this->stages as $stage => $field)
  {
    if ($currentStage > $stage)
    {
      $this->setWidget($stage, new sfWidgetFormInputHidden()); //so these values carry through
    }
    if ($stage > $currentStage)
    {
       unset($this[$stage]); //we don't want this stage here yet
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Override doBind

You might need to override bind() directly, I forget.

public function doBind(array $taintedValues)
{
  $cleanStage = $this->getValidator('stage')->clean($taintedValues['stage']);
  $this->configureAsStage($cleanStage);
  parent::doBind($taintedValues);
}

Step 5: Add some auxiliary methods to the form

public function advanceStage()
{
  if ($this->isValid())
  {
    $this->values['stage'] += 1;
    $this->taintedValues['stage'] += 1;
    $this->resetFormFields();
  }
}

public function isLastStage()
{
  return $this->getValue('stage') == count($this->stages);
}

Step 6: Call configureAsStage/advanceStage as necessary in your action

public function executeNew(sfWebRequest $request)
{
  $form = new MultiStageForm($record);
  $form->configureAsStep(1);
}

public function executeCreate(sfWebRequest $request)
{
  $record = new Record();
  $form = new MultiStageForm($record);
  $form->bind($request[$form->getName()]);
  if ($form->isValid())
  {
    if ($form->isLastStage())
    {
      $form->save();
      //redirect or whatever you do here
    }
    $form->advanceStage(); 
  }
  //render form
}

I made this up completely on the fly. I think it should work, but I haven't tested it so there may be some mistakes!