Symfony2.1 using form with method GET

Question

I need help on using Symfony2.1 forms with method=GET and a clean URL space.

I am creating a "filter" which I'd like to set in the URL so that people can bookmark their links.

So, very simply the code:

$form = $this->createFormBuilder($defaultData)
    ->add('from', 'date', array('required' => false, 'widget' => 'single_text', 'format' => 'dd.MM.yyyy'))

I render the form widget and all is fine.

However when I submit the form, it produces very ugly GET parameters:

/app_dev.php/de/event?form%5Bfrom%5D=17.11.2012

This is because the input name is of course form[from]

So to clean the URL space, I made myself a theme:

{% block widget_attributes %}
{% spaceless %}
    id="{{ id }}" name="{{ id }}"{% if read_only %} disabled="disabled"{% endif %}{% if required %} required="required"{% endif %}{% if max_length %} maxlength="{{ max_length }}"{% endif %}{% if pattern %} pattern="{{ pattern }}"{% endif %}
    {% for attrname,attrvalue in attr %}{{attrname}}="{{attrvalue}}" {% endfor %}
{% endspaceless %}
{% endblock widget_attributes %}

where I replaced name="{{ full_name }}" with name="{{ id }}".

This works well - my URL space is cleaner:

/app_dev.php/de/event?form_from=17.11.2012

I guess I could live with that - although ideally from=xxx would be better. That is the first and more minor problem.

---

The second problem is that I can't get the form to bind anymore - this is obvious because the parameter "form" is no longer set - "form_from" has replaced it, but when you do a bind it is still expecting form[].

I tried to fix that like this:

$fromDate = $this->get('request')->query->get('form_from', null);
$request->query->set('form', array('from' => $fromDate);

But that doesn't work. I also suspect that I am digging a huge hole of hacks at the moment.

So, the question is: should I just live with the form%5Bfrom%5D url, or is there a better way to do all of this (without using POST obviously)?

Answer 1

You can set the name of the root form to empty, then your field name will be just form. Do so via

// the first argument to createNamedBuilder() is the name
$form = $this->get('form.factory')->createNamedBuilder(null, 'form', $defaultData)
    ->add('from', 'date', array(
        'required' => false,
        'widget' => 'single_text',
        'format' => 'dd.MM.yyyy'
    ));

Answer 2

using return null; in your implementation of AbstractType::getName seems to have the same effect these days.

Answer 3

old thread, but worth mentioning that symfony 3 ignores getName entirely.

However, you can do the same with getBlockPrefix if you need the form name to be blank.

public function getBlockPrefix() {
    return null;
}

this will result in form fields being named without a prefix.