How do I trigger form validation without binding a request?

Question

I have a very long order form that enables saving drafts. If saved as draft, only order name is required but when actually placing an order a more thorough validation is required. I implemented this by using different validation groups. When editing the order I display two buttons: "Save draft" and "Place order". Each of them performs validation using a different validation group.

But now I would like to make a button on the list of orders which enables to change order status from 'draft' to 'placed' directly. To do so, validation must be performed without displaying edit form and submitting it. I would just like to validate the entity that is already in the database. I can use the validator service and everything is simple as long as the data is valid. But in case data isn't valid, I would like to redirect user to the edit form with fields with missing data highlighted. The idea seems to load data from database into the form and run validation as if that data were sent using a browser but execution of this doesn't seem to be trivial because Symfony2 triggers validation on form only when binding the request.

I was going through the Symfony source code and found s class called Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Validator\EventListener\ValidationListener. It seems to attach itself on the FormEvents::POST_SUBMIT event. Is there a way to trigger this event manually from the controller without request binding? Or are there any alternative approaches to my problem?

I'm sorry. Even though you explicitly stated that you didn't want to bind a request, my answer still needs you to do that. But I don't see anything wrong with my solution. You can bind the request, even if you are not called from the edit form. — pagliuca

gblock gblock · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-05T09:08:03

Just to point out the correct answer already given by Matjaž Drolc in the comments:

If you want to validate a form without getting the data from the request, you have to call the form->submit() function, because Symfony does not validate the fields if they are not marked as submitted, which is done by this function.

Call the function like this

$form->submit(array(), false);

With an empty array as the submitted data and not clearing the missing fields.

How do I trigger form validation without binding a request?

1 Answers