How do I implement dynamic (i.e. not cached) Doctrine Asserts in Symfony2? - symfony

Question

I have a Doctrine-Entity in my Symfony2-Project, which uses a custom Assert/Constraint to check, if a given date value is before and/or after a given date. This looks like the following simplified code:
In my entity class:
/**
* #var \DateTime
*
* #ORM\Column(name="entry_entered_at", type="date", nullable=true)
* #AppBundleAssert\DateRangeConstraint(max = "today")
*/
private $entryEnteredAt;
The relevant snippet of the corresponding DateRangeConstraint-class:
new \DateTime($this->max)
As you can see, I want to check, if a date is before today. The \DateTime-constructor is able to resolve this to a DateTime-object of today. Nice thing, works fine.
The problem
But it turns out, that Symfony2 caches all those Doctrine-annotations, so today is always resolved to the day, the cache was lastly cleared and my constraint produces nice form errors.
As a workaround for now, I clear the cache on a daily basis, but I need a better solution.
The question
So the question is, what would you suggest, how to implement such a dynamic assert/constraint in Symfony2?
I could implement the constraint inside the form, but it should be in the domain of the entity.
Edit:
I posted as answer and marked it as solution.

Answer 1

The solution and some answers
It turned out, that the built in Range validator is also able to validate a date-range. So I don't need my custom validator at all.
Digging a bit deeper into the built in Range constraint and the base Constraint class gives the reason, why the built in validators can use dynamic parameters like today, but not my incorrect implemented custom validator. The Constraint base class has a __sleep() method that just stores the object vars and its current values on serialization. Thus, when we don't reinitialize the object with a custom __wakeup() method, which would be a false workaround, we only get the cached parameters.
So besides the fact, that the builtin Range constraint already solves my problem, I simply should have done my dynamic new \DateTime($constraint->max) stuff inside the custom DateRangeConstraintValidator and not the cached custom DateRangeConstraint. Just have a look into Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Range and Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\RangeValidator to see this in action.
Lessons learned
Your custom Constraint class will be serialized and cached and thus shouldn't do any dynamic things. Just validate the options and define the messages and stuff. Your dynamic validation things (and especially the initialization of dynamic parameters) must be done within your custom ConstraintValidator class.

Answer 2

I suggest you to look at Custom validator, especially Class Constraint Validator.
I won't copy paste the whole code, just the parts which you will have to change.
Extends the Constraint class.
src/Acme/DemoBundle/Validator/Constraints/CheckEntryEnteredAt.php
<?php
namespace Acme\DemoBundle\Validator\Constraints;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint;
/**
* #Annotation
*/
class CheckEntryEnteredAt extends Constraint
{
public $message = 'Your error message.';
public function validatedBy()
{
return 'CheckEntryEnteredAtValidator';
}
public function getTargets()
{
return self::CLASS_CONSTRAINT;
}
}
Define the validator by extending the ConstraintValidator class, entryEnteredAt is the field you want to check:
src/Acme/DemoBundle/Validator/Constraints/CheckEntryEnteredAtValidator.php
namespace Acme\DemoBundle\Validator\Constraints;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraint;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\ConstraintValidator;
class CheckEntryEnteredAtValidator extends ConstraintValidator
{
public function validate($entity, Constraint $constraint)
{
$today = new \Datetime('today'); // = midnight
if ($entity->entryEnteredAt < $today) {
$this->context->addViolationAt('entryEnteredAt',
$constraint->message, array(), null);
}
}
}
Use the validator:
src/Acme/DemoBundle/Resources/config/validation.yml
Acme\DemoBundle\Entity\AcmeEntity:
constraints:
- Acme\DemoBundle\Validator\Constraints\CheckEntryEnteredAt: ~
(adapted from a previous answer)

Answer 3

public function __construct()
{
$this->entryEnteredAt = new \DateTime();
}
is something like that a solution for your use case? (on new YourEntity() you'll have a today date set for the entryEnteredAt property)
You could also use LifecycleCallbacks, here is an exemple with preUpdate (there is some more, like PrePersist):
on top of your class entity:
* #ORM\HasLifecycleCallbacks()
and
/**
* Set updatedAt
*
* #ORM\PreUpdate
*/
public function setUpdatedAt()
{
$this->updatedAt = new \DateTime();
}