Question

Is there any way that i can render ONLY the start <form> tag of a Zend_Form object?

print $this->registerForm->renderForm();

renders <form></form>, and i only need <form>

Edit:

After Asleys possible solution i wrote this for My_Form class

public function renderFormOpen() {
    return str_replace('</form>', '', $this->renderForm());
}

public function renderFormClose() {
    return '</form>';
}

Still looking for at ZF way of doing thins, even though i don’t think there is any – after going through the code in the ZF library.

Answer 1

You could write an custom form-decorator that uses a custom view-helper that only renders the open form tag. But I think this would be overkill.
Just “hardcode” the form-tags and fill the attributes with the data provided by the form-variable in your view.

<!--in your view-template -->
<form action="<?php echo $this->form->getAction() ?>"
      enctype="<?php echo $this->form->getEnctype() ?>"
      method="<?php echo $this->form->getMethod() ?>"
      id="<?php echo $this->form->getId() ?>"
      class="<?php echo $this->form->getAttrib('class') ?>" >

    <!--in case your products are represented as elements -->
    <?php foreach ($this->form->getElements() as $element): ?>
       <?php echo $element ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>

    <!--in case your products are represented as displayGroups -->
    <?php foreach ($this->form->getDisplayGroups() as $displayGroup): ?>
       <?php echo $displayGroup ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>

    <!--in case your products are represented as subforms -->
    <?php foreach ($this->form->getSubforms() as $subform): ?>
       <?php echo $subform ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>

    <!--in case your products are rendered by a view helper -->
    <?php foreach ($this->products as $product): ?>
       <?php echo $this->renderProduct($product) ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</form>

Just for fun the overkill way

// Get your products form
$form = new Form_Products();
// Add custom prefix path
$form->addPrefixPath('Foobar_Form_Decorator', 'Foobar/Form/Decorator', 'decorator');
// Set OnlyOpenTagForm-ViewHelper for FormDecorator
$form->getDecorator('Form')->setHelper('OnlyOpenTagForm');

// copy Zend/View/Helper/Form to Foobar/Form/Decorato/OnlyOpenTagForm.php
// In OnlyOpenTagForm.php
//   replace Zend_View_Helper_Form with Foobar_View_Helper_OnlyOpenTagForm
//   replace method "form" with onlyOpenTagForm"
//   replace
if (false !== $content) {
    $xhtml .= $content
           .  '</form>';
}
//   with:        
if (false !== $content) {
    $xhtml .= $content;
}

Done! – The Java-Guys will love it 😉