Document with EmbedMany as a Form (Symfony 3) - symfony

Question

I have a document
/**
* #ODM\Document
*/
class Result
{
/**
* #var int $id
* #ODM\Id
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #var string $name
* #ODM\Field(type="string")
*/
protected $name;
/**
* #var UserComment[] $userComments
* #ODM\EmbedMany(targetDocument="UserComment")
*/
protected $userComments;
}
/** #ODM\EmbeddedDocument() */
class UserComment {
public $addedBy;
public $createdAt;
public $comment;
}
I want to create a form which allows me to add new user comments. But it would only have the $comment as TextAreaType. The other 2 fields should be added automatically.
I have used the collectiontype like this:
class ResultForm extends AbstractType
{
/**
* buildForm
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder->add('userComments', CollectionType::class, [
'entry_type' => UserCommentType::class,
'required' => false,
'allow_add' => true,
'label' => false,
'delete_empty' => true,
'prototype' => true,
'entry_options' => [
'attr' => [
'class' => 'user-comment-widget'
],
'label' => false,
]
]);
$builder->add('submit', SubmitType::class);
}
And added also a UserCommentType:
class UserCommentType extends AbstractType
{
/**
* #var TokenStorage
*/
private $tokenStorage;
public function __construct(TokenStorage $tokenStorage)
{
$this->tokenStorage = $tokenStorage;
}
/**
* buildForm
* #param FormBuilderInterface $builder
* #param array $options
* #throws \Exception
*/
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$now = new \DateTime('now');
$builder->add('comment', TextareaType::class, [
'label' => false,
])
->add('addedBy', HiddenType::class, [
'data' => $this->tokenStorage->getToken()->getUser()->getUsername(),
])
->add('createdAt', HiddenType::class, [
'data' => $now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')
]);
}
After having a bunch of exception/errors etc I figured there must be an easier way to do this. This does not work as the UserCommentType has no access to the original data for some reason even though I use this to initialize the ResultForm:
$form = $this->createForm(ResultForm::class, $result);

Answer 1

To access the values inside a collection form, you have to use listeners. By adding an PRE_SET_DATA listener to the form, you could change those values.
Documentation
$builder->addEventListener(FormEvents::PRE_SET_DATA, array($this, 'onPreSetData'));
Now the function called by the listener. This will iterate through each element in the collection, so you can add your code there.
public function onPreSetData(FormEvent $event) {
$entity = $event->getData();
$form = $event->getForm();
if ($entity) {
$form->add('comment', TextareaType::class, [
'label' => false,
])
->add('addedBy', HiddenType::class, [
'data' => $this->tokenStorage->getToken()->getUser()->getUsername(),
])
->add('createdAt', HiddenType::class, [
'data' => $now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')
]);
}
}
Make sure to add the if clause, if required, as the first iteration will be to create the collection form prototype and you might don't want it to have presetted values.