Symfony2 : How to get form validation errors after

Question

Here's my saveAction code (where the form passes the data to)

public function saveAction()
{
    $user = OBUser();

    $form = $this->createForm(new OBUserType(), $user);

    if ($this->request->getMethod() == 'POST')
    {
        $form->bindRequest($this->request);
        if ($form->isValid())
            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('success_page'));
        else
            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('registration_form'));
    } else
        return new Response();
}

My question is: how do I get the errors if $form->isValid() returns false?

Answer 1

You have two possible ways of doing it:

• do not redirect user upon error and display {{ form_errors(form) }} within template file
• access error array as $form->getErrors()

Answer 2

Based on @Jay Seth's answer, I made a version of FormErrors class especially for Ajax Forms:

// src/AppBundle/Form/FormErrors.php
namespace AppBundle\Form;

class FormErrors
{

    /**
     * @param \Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form
     *
     * @return array $errors
     */
    public function getArray(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form)
    {
        return $this->getErrors($form, $form->getName());
    }

    /**
     * @param \Symfony\Component\Form\Form $baseForm
     * @param \Symfony\Component\Form\Form $baseFormName
     *
     * @return array $errors
     */
    private function getErrors($baseForm, $baseFormName) {
        $errors = array();
        if ($baseForm instanceof \Symfony\Component\Form\Form) {
            foreach($baseForm->getErrors() as $error) {
                $errors[] = array(
                    "mess"      => $error->getMessage(),
                    "key"       => $baseFormName
                );
            }

            foreach ($baseForm->all() as $key => $child) {
                if(($child instanceof \Symfony\Component\Form\Form)) {
                    $cErrors = $this->getErrors($child, $baseFormName . "_" . $child->getName());
                    $errors = array_merge($errors, $cErrors);
                }
            }
        }
        return $errors;
    }
}

Usage (e.g. in your action):

$errors = $this->get('form_errors')->getArray($form);

Symfony version: 2.8.4

Example JSON response:

{
    "success": false,
    "errors": [{
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_user_firstname"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_user_lastname"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_user_email"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_user_zipCode"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_user_password_password"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_terms"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message2",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_terms"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_marketing"
    }, {
        "mess": "error_message2",
        "key": "RegistrationForm_marketing"
    }]
}

The error object contains the "key" field, which is the id of the input DOM element, so you can easily populate error messages.

If you have child forms inside the parent, don't forget to add the cascade_validation option inside the parent form's setDefaults.

Answer 3

Symfony 2.3 / 2.4:

This function get's all the errors. The ones on the form like "The CSRF token is invalid. Please try to resubmit the form." as well as additional errors on the form children which have no error bubbling.

private function getErrorMessages(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form) {
    $errors = array();

    foreach ($form->getErrors() as $key => $error) {
        if ($form->isRoot()) {
            $errors['#'][] = $error->getMessage();
        } else {
            $errors[] = $error->getMessage();
        }
    }

    foreach ($form->all() as $child) {
        if (!$child->isValid()) {
            $errors[$child->getName()] = $this->getErrorMessages($child);
        }
    }

    return $errors;
}

To get all errors as a string:

$string = var_export($this->getErrorMessages($form), true);

---

Symfony 2.5 / 3.0:

$string = (string) $form->getErrors(true, false);

Docs:
https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/master/UPGRADE-2.5.md#form https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/master/UPGRADE-3.0.md#form (at the bottom: The method Form::getErrorsAsString() was removed)

Answer 4

SYMFONY 3.1

I simply implemented a static method to handle the display of errors

static function serializeFormErrors(Form\Form $form)
{
    $errors = array();
    /**
     * @var  $key
     * @var Form\Form $child
     */
    foreach ($form->all() as $key => $child) {
        if (!$child->isValid()) {
            foreach ($child->getErrors() as $error) {
                $errors[$key] = $error->getMessage();
            }
        }
    }

    return $errors;
}

Hoping to help

Answer 5

Below is the solution that worked for me. This function is in a controller and will return a structured array of all the error messages and the field that caused them.

Symfony 2.0:

private function getErrorMessages(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form) {
    $errors = array();
    foreach ($form->getErrors() as $key => $error) {
        $template = $error->getMessageTemplate();
        $parameters = $error->getMessageParameters();

        foreach($parameters as $var => $value){
            $template = str_replace($var, $value, $template);
        }

        $errors[$key] = $template;
    }
    if ($form->hasChildren()) {
        foreach ($form->getChildren() as $child) {
            if (!$child->isValid()) {
                $errors[$child->getName()] = $this->getErrorMessages($child);
            }
        }
    }

    return $errors;
}

Symfony 2.1 and newer:

private function getErrorMessages(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form) {      
    $errors = array();

    if ($form->hasChildren()) {
        foreach ($form->getChildren() as $child) {
            if (!$child->isValid()) {
                $errors[$child->getName()] = $this->getErrorMessages($child);
            }
        }
    } else {
        foreach ($form->getErrors() as $key => $error) {
            $errors[] = $error->getMessage();
        }   
    }

    return $errors;
}

Answer 6

To get proper (translatable) messages, currently using SF 2.6.3, here is my final function (as none of above's seem to work anymore):

 private function getErrorMessages(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form) {      
    $errors = array();
    foreach ($form->getErrors(true, false) as $error) {
        // My personnal need was to get translatable messages
        // $errors[] = $this->trans($error->current()->getMessage());
        $errors[] = $error->current()->getMessage();
    }

    return $errors;
}

as the Form::getErrors() method now returns an instance of FormErrorIterator, unless you switch the second argument ($flatten) to true. (It will then return a FormError instance, and you will have to call the getMessage() method directly, without the current() method:

 private function getErrorMessages(\Symfony\Component\Form\Form $form) {      
    $errors = array();
    foreach ($form->getErrors(true, true) as $error) {
        // My personnal need was to get translatable messages
        // $errors[] = $this->trans($error->getMessage());
        $errors[] = $error->getMessage();
    }

    return $errors;
}

)

The most important thing is actually to set the first argument to true in order to get the errors. Leaving the second argument ($flatten) to his default value (true) will return FormError instances, while it will return FormErrorIterator instances when set to false.