Symfony - Edit User Entity without changing password - symfony

Question

I'm running Symfony 3.4.14 and I developed my own User Bundle, I have a very bad experience with FOS then I don't want to use anymore. My goal is to let the admin users create/edit/remove users, I mean other users account.
I made :
the User entity
the Login form
the Registration form
.. and I'm stuck with the Update form. I want to let the admins edit a user without editing the password, but to give them the opportunity to do it if needed. Below is my EditUserAction in controller :
<?php
/**
* #Route("/admin/users/edit/{id}", requirements={"id" = "\d+"}, name="admin_users_edit")
* #Template("#Core/admin/users_edit.html.twig")
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function EditUserAction($id, Request $request, UserPasswordEncoderInterface $passwordEncoder)
{
$user = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('CoreBundle:User')->findOneBy([ 'id'=>$id, 'deleted' => 0 ]);
if ( $user )
{
$old_password = $user->getPassword();
$form = $this->createForm(UserType::class, $user);
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid())
{
// If admin changed the user password
if ( $user->getPlainPassword() )
{
$password = $passwordEncoder->encodePassword($user, $user->getPlainPassword());
$user->setPassword($password);
}
// If admin didn't change the user password, we persist the old one
else
{
$user->setPassword($old_password);
}
$entityManager = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$entityManager->persist($user);
$entityManager->flush();
}
return array('form' => $form->createView());
}
return $this->redirectToRoute('admin_users');
}
Case 1 (when admin choose to change the user password) works well, but the other case (when admin don't want to change the password) fails. They are no way to let the 2 password inputs empty. I can't get rid of this validation error in the debug toolbar :
Path: data.plainPassword
Message: This value should not be blank
In order to avoid this error, as you can see in my controller above, I try to keep the old one (may not be a best practice, I know).

Answer 1

In your form / entity (where you defined validations) you should write either your own constraint (documentation) or validation callback (documentation). In there you can check - If value is null, don't validate, if not null run your validations.

Answer 2

You need to have two separate methods for both.
public function changePasswordAction(Request $request)
{
// your code for changing password.
}
/**
* #Route("/admin/users/edit/{id}", requirements={"id" = "\d+"}, name="admin_users_edit")
* #Template("#Core/admin/users_edit.html.twig")
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function editUserAction(User $user = null, Request $request, UserPasswordEncoderInterface $passwordEncoder)
{
//you can directly give your User Entity reference in parameters and you dont need to write an extra query to find user.
if ( $user === null){
//return user not found
}
else if($user->isDeleted() === false)
{
$form = $this->createForm(UserType::class, $user);
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid())
{
//your code
}
// your code
}
return $this->redirectToRoute('admin_users');
}