Can i use query in form builder to get filtered collection in symfony form

Question

IN the AcmePizza BUndle this is working fine

->add(\'pizza\', \'entity\', array(
                \'class\'         => \'Acme\\PizzaBundle\\Entity\\Pizza\',         


        

Answer 1

You often want to filter collection when you are updating an entity, not having a new one, right?

Here is a working solution, this is an example from controller (CRUD):

public function updateAction($id)
{
    $service = $this->getServiceRepository()->loadOne('id', $id);
    $this->checkPermission($service);

    $this->filterInventoryByPrimaryLocation($service);

    if($this->getFormHandler()->process('service_repair_service', $service, array('type' => 'update')))
    {
        $this->getEntityManager()->process('persist', $service);

        return $this->render('ServiceRepairBundle:Service:form_message.html.twig', [
            'message' => $this->trans('Service has been updated successfully.')
        ]);
    }

    return $this->render('ServiceRepairBundle:Service:form.html.twig', [
        'form' => $this->getFormHandler()->getForm()->createView(),
    ]);
}

private function filterInventoryByPrimaryLocation(Service $service)
{
    $inventory = $service->getInventory();

    $criteria = Criteria::create()
        ->where(Criteria::expr()->eq('location', $this->getUser()->getPrimaryLocation()))
        ->orderBy(array('timeInsert' => Criteria::ASC));

    $service->setInventory($inventory->matching($criteria));
}

$service = ENTITY, $inventory = ArrayCollection ( $service->getInventory() )

The key here is to use Doctrine's Criteria, more info here:

http://doctrine-orm.readthedocs.org/en/latest/reference/working-with-associations.html#filtering-collections

Also think of moving the Criteria in entity itself, make a public method there. When you load it from database, you can fire that method using doctrine's postLoad lifecycle callback. Ofcourse putting it in entity will work, if you don't require any services or things like that.

Another solution would probably be, to move the Criteria in a Form Event inside Form class, if you need filtering only inside a form.

If you need the collection filtering to be done transparently across whole project, write a doctrine listener and put the code inside a postLoad() method. You can also inject dependencies in doctrine listener, but I recommend injecting container itself, because of lazy loading other services, so you do not get circular service references.

Good luck!