How to use Symfony EasyAdmin with entities having a constructor? - symfony

Question

Does EasyAdmin support entity classes with constructor arguments for properties that are meant to be not nullable? EasyAdmin instantiates the entity class even if you click the "Add " button, right? Unfortunatelly this results in an "Too few arguments to function __construct()" error. Do you have a solution for this problem?
I tend to use the constructor for entity properties that are not nullable. Unfortunatelly EasyAdmin throws errors like this one when I click on the e.g. Add FiscalYear button to create a new entity object (FiscalYear in my example):
Too few arguments to function App\Entity\FiscalYear::__construct(), 0 passed in /myProject/vendor/easycorp/easyadmin-bundle/src/Controller/AdminControllerTrait.php on line 618 and exactly 2 expected
How can I prevent these errors? As you can see in the following entity class the two constructor arguments represent the data that is meant to be submitted via the form:
<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
namespace App\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="App\Repository\FiscalYearRepository")
*/
class FiscalYear
{
/**
* #ORM\Id()
* #ORM\GeneratedValue()
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
private ?int $id = null;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
private int $title;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="boolean", options={"default": 0})
*/
private bool $completed = false;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="App\Entity\Company", inversedBy="fiscalYears")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(nullable=false)
*/
private Company $company;
public function __construct(int $title, Company $company)
{
$this->title = $title;
$this->company = $company;
}
public function getId(): ?int
{
return $this->id;
}
public function getTitle(): int
{
return $this->title;
}
public function setTitle(int $title): void
{
$this->title = $title;
}
public function getCompleted(): bool
{
return $this->completed;
}
public function setCompleted(bool $completed): void
{
$this->completed = $completed;
}
public function getCompany(): Company
{
return $this->company;
}
public function setCompany(Company $company): void
{
$this->company = $company;
}
}
Is there a possibility to let EasyAdmin show the "create a new entity object" form without instantiating the entity class?

Answer 1

No, EasyAdmin doesn't natively support constructor with argument.
To avoid this problem, you have three solution.
solution1: Override EasyAdminController
The documentation explains this method.
// src/Controller/AdminController.php
namespace App\Controller;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Controller\EasyAdminController;
class FiscalYearController extends EasyAdminController
{
public function createNewFiscalYearEntity()
{
//your own logic here to retrieve title and company
return new FiscalYear($title, $company);
}
}
Depending you business model, it could be very difficult to retrieve title and company
solution2: Respect the entity pattern and help your business model with a factory pattern
Your entities should respect the entity pattern and their constructor should be edited to remove arguments.
To replace your constructor in your business model, create a factory.
class FiscalYearFactory
{
public static function create(int $title, Company $company): FiscalYear
{
$fiscalYear = new FiscalYear();
$fiscalYear->setCompany($company);
$fiscalYear->setTitle($title);
return $fiscalYear;
}
}
in your model, you have to do some updates:
//Comment code like this in your business model
$fiscalYear = new FiscalYear(2020,$company);
//Replace it, by this code:
$fiscalYear = FiscalYearFactory::create(2020,$company);
Solution3 Accept null values in your constructor.
I do NOT like this solution. Your properties shall be edited too to accept null values, your getters shall be edited to return null value. This is a solution, but I discourage you to use it.
<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
namespace App\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="App\Repository\FiscalYearRepository")
*/
class FiscalYear
{
/**
* #ORM\Id()
* #ORM\GeneratedValue()
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
private ?int $id = null;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
private ?int $title;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="boolean", options={"default": 0})
*/
private bool $completed = false;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="App\Entity\Company", inversedBy="fiscalYears")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(nullable=false)
*/
private Company $company;
public function __construct(?int $title = null, ?Company $company = null)
{
$this->title = $title;
$this->company = $company;
}
public function getId(): ?int
{
return $this->id;
}
public function getTitle(): ?int
{
return $this->title;
}
You should use the first solution which is a better practice