[SOLVED] Form collection

[Manu13]

Hi,

I have two entities : Product and Picture with a one-to-many relation. I try to create a product form with a pictures collection. I can edit my product and all its pictures. To add a new one, I create new fields with javascript.

The problem is that when I submit the form, new pictures are persisted without a product_id, and an exception is thrown.

What am I doing wrong ? Here is my code :

Product class

Code: Select all

    /**
     * @var ArrayCollection
     *
     * @ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="Picture", mappedBy="product", cascade={"all"})
     */
    protected $pictures;

Picture class

Code: Select all

    /**
     * @var Product $product
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Product", inversedBy="pictures")
     * @ORM\JoinColumn(nullable=false)
     */
    protected $product;

Form (in my action)

Code: Select all

$product = $this->getRepository()->find(1);

$form = $this->createFormBuilder($product)
    ->add('title', 'text')
    ->add('pictures', 'collection', array(
        'type' => new PictureType(),
        'allow_add' => true,
        'prototype' => true,
    ))
    ->getForm();

$request = $this->get('request');
if ($request->getMethod() == 'POST') {
    $form->bindRequest($request);

    if ($form->isValid()) {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getEntityManager();
        $em->persist($product);
        $em->flush();
    }
}


[blauwers]

You are having a common problem with bi-directional doctrine relationships.

bindRequest does not use class methods to put data into your original object. The net result is that your method that would otherwise set up the reverse pointer is not called. Since the reverse pointer is how doctrine figures out the relationship it causes this problem.

You need to add something like:

Code: Select all

// hack to work around bindRequest not using class methods to populate data
foreach ( $product->getPictures() as $pic ) {
         $pic->setProduct($product);
}


before your persist call to work around the problem.

[Manu13]

Thank you very much !

[NOP-erator]

Hey, this fixed my problems, too. Now I can add and update sub entities. But how to remove sub entities? I remove the complete sub entity from the DOM using javascript, so it isn't sent via POST. How to tell doctrine to delete the rows with data, that were not passed?

Can you please help?

[Manu13]

I think you have to add - for example - checkboxes near from each sub entity, and after the form submission, for each of them do $em->remove($subEntity).

[NOP-erator]

I think you have to add - for example - checkboxes near from each sub entity, and after the form submission, for each of them do $em->remove($subEntity).

Unfortunately this is not an option for me. There has to be a way, I just don't know it. Actually I thought bind() in combination with doctrine is taking care of this itself.
Any other ideas?

[maker]

There two approaches to deal with this:
1. After validating the form iterate trough the picture collection (if it exist) and delete all pictures which primary keys aren't submitted in your request.
2. Create additional hidden fields in your form to store the current picture collection primary key list. After validating the form make a diff between the request data of the hidden picture collection and the modified picture collection. Every key from the hidden picture collection that do not exist in the modified picture collection must be deleted.