Question

I am trying to add a simple form to allow my users to edit their profile. My problem is:

Since the entity “linked” to the form is the same as the current user object ($user === $entity, see below), if the form validation fails, then the view is rendered with the modified user object (ie. with values of the non-valid form).

Here my (classic) controller:

public function profileAction()
{
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getEntityManager();

    $user = $this->get('security.context')->getToken()->getUser();
    $entity = $em->getRepository('AcmeSecurityBundle:User')->find($user->id);
    // $user === $entity => true

    $form = $this->createForm(new ProfileType(), $entity);

    $request = $this->getRequest();

    if ($request->getMethod() === 'POST')
    {
        $form->bindRequest($request);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $em->persist($entity);
            $em->flush();

            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('profile'));
        }
    }

    return $this->render('AcmeSecurityBundle:User:profile.html.twig', array(
        'entity'      => $entity,
        'form'   => $form->createView(),
    ));
}

So I wondered how to have two distincts objects $user and $entity. I used clone() and it worked well for the view rendering part (the $user object was not modified), but it created a new record in database instead of updating the old one.

PS: I know I should use FOSUserBundle. But I would really like to understand my mistake here 🙂

Answer 1

I used the same solution as FOSUserBundle, which is calling $em->refresh() on my entity when the form validation fails:

public function profileAction()
{
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getEntityManager();

    $user = $this->get('security.context')->getToken()->getUser();
    $entity = $em->getRepository('AcmeSecurityBundle:User')->find($user->id);

    if (!$entity) {
        throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find User entity.');
    }

    $form = $this->createForm(new ProfileType(), $entity);

    $request = $this->getRequest();

    if ($request->getMethod() === 'POST')
    {
        $form->bindRequest($request);

        if ($form->isValid()) {
            $em->persist($entity);
            $em->flush();

            return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('profile'));
        }

        $em->refresh($user); // Add this line
    }

    return $this->render('AcmeSecurityBundle:User:profile.html.twig', array(
        'entity'      => $entity,
        'form'   => $form->createView(),
    ));
}

Note that if you are using what is called a “virtual” field in “How to handle File Uploads with Doctrine” (in my case “picture_file” you will need to clear it by hand:

$em->refresh($user);
$user->picture_file = null; // here