Symfony 4 handling null DateType form field

Question

I have a form in Symfony 4 where I implement the DateType as a text field

->add('DateOfBirth', DateType::class, array(
    'required' => false,
    'widget' => 'single_text',
    'empty_data' =
))

however the field is optional to fill in for the form. When I submit the form with an empty value for that field I receive the error:

Expected argument of type "DateTimeInterface", "NULL" given.

erroring on the line

$form->handleRequest($request);

It seems I need to pass in a default value (i.e. - 1/1/1990) as null is not a valid DateTime value? What is the correct way to handle this? I looked on this page and tried various things (i.e. - changing input type) but nothing seems to fix this.

Thanks in advance!

My Entity:

<?php

namespace App\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use NoProtocol\Encryption\MySQL\AES\Crypter;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="App\Repository\PatientsRepository")
 * @ORM\Table(name="Patients")
 */
class PatientSearch
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id()
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue()
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    private $PatientId;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=100, nullable=true)
     */
    private $Address1;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=100, nullable=true)
     */
    private $Address2;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=50, nullable=true)
     */
    private $City;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=2, nullable=true)
     */
    private $State;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="date", nullable=true)
     */
    private $DateOfBirth;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=50)
     */
    private $LastName;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=50)
     */
    private $FirstName;

    public function getId(): ?int
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function getPatientId(): ?int
    {
        return $this->PatientId;
    }

    public function setPatientId(int $PatientId): self
    {
        $this->PatientId = $PatientId;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getAddress1(): ?string
    {
        return $this->Address1;
    }

    public function setAddress1(string $Address1): self
    {
        $this->Address1 = $Address1;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getAddress2(): ?string
    {
        return $this->Address2;
    }

    public function setAddress2(string $Address2): self
    {
        $this->Address2 = $Address2;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getCity(): ?string
    {
        return $this->City;
    }

    public function setCity(string $City): self
    {
        $this->City = $City;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getState(): ?string
    {
        return $this->State;
    }

    public function setState(string $State): self
    {
        $this->State = $State;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getDateOfBirth(): ?\DateTimeInterface
    {
        return $this->DateOfBirth;
    }

    public function setDateOfBirth(\DateTimeInterface $DateOfBirth): self
    {
        $this->DateOfBirth = $DateOfBirth;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getLastName(): ?string
    {
        return $this->LastName;
    }

    public function setLastName(string $LastName): self
    {
        $this->LastName = $LastName;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getFirstName(): ?string
    {
        return $this->FirstName;
    }

    public function setFirstName(string $FirstName): self
    {
        $this->FirstName = $FirstName;

        return $this;
    }
}

Type:

<?php

namespace App\Form;

use App\Entity\PatientSearch;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;

class PatientSearchType extends AbstractType
{
    public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder
            ->add('FirstName', TextType::class, array('required' => false))
            ->add('LastName', TextType::class, array('required' => false))
            ->add('DateOfBirth', DateType::class, array(
                'required' => false,
                'widget' => 'single_text',
                'empty_data'  => '',
                ))
        ;
    }

    public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
    {
        $resolver->setDefaults([
            'data_class' => PatientSearch::class,
        ]);
    }
}

Controller:

<?php

namespace App\Controller;

use App\Form\PatientSearchType;
use App\Entity\PatientSearch;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

class PatientSearchController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/patient/search", name="patient_search")
     */
    public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $form = $this->createForm(PatientSearchType::class);

        $form->handleRequest($request);

        dump($form);
        dump($form->isValid());

        $search = null;
        if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) {
            $searchFormData = $form->getData();
            dump($searchFormData);
            $search = $this->getDoctrine()
                ->getRepository(PatientSearch::class)
                ->findBy(array(
                    'LastName' => $searchFormData->getLastName(),
                    'FirstName' => $searchFormData->getFirstName(),
                    'DateOfBirth' => $searchFormData->getDateOfBirth(),
                    ));

        }

        return $this->render('patient_search/index.html.twig', [
            'search_form' => $form->createView(),
            'search' => $search
        ]);
    }
}

Error Dump (after setting 'empty_data' => '1/1/2000)':

FormErrorIterator {#542 ▼
  -form: Form {#507 ▼
    -config: FormBuilder {#508 ▶}
    -parent: null
    -children: OrderedHashMap {#509 ▼
      -elements: array:3 [▼
        "FirstName" => Form {#510 ▶}
        "LastName" => Form {#513 ▶}
        "DateOfBirth" => Form {#516 ▼
          -config: FormBuilder {#517 ▶}
          -parent: Form {#507}
          -children: OrderedHashMap {#518 ▶}
          -errors: array:1 [▼
            0 => FormError {#825 ▼
              #messageTemplate: "This value is not valid."
              #messageParameters: array:1 [▼
                "{{ value }}" => "1/1/2000"
              ]
              #messagePluralization: null
              -message: "This value is not valid."
              -cause: ConstraintViolation {#794 ▼
                -message: "This value is not valid."
                -messageTemplate: "This value is not valid."
                -parameters: array:1 [▶]
                -plural: null
                -root: Form {#507}
                -propertyPath: "children[DateOfBirth]"
                -invalidValue: "1/1/2000"
                -constraint: Form {#532 ▶}
                -code: "1dafa156-89e1-4736-b832-419c2e501fca"
                -cause: TransformationFailedException {#520 ▶}
              }
              -origin: Form {#516}
            }
          ]
          -submitted: true
          -clickedButton: null
          -modelData: null
          -normData: null
          -viewData: "1/1/2000"
          -extraData: []
          -transformationFailure: TransformationFailedException {#520 ▼
            #message: "Unable to reverse value for property path "DateOfBirth": Date parsing failed: U_PARSE_ERROR"
            #code: 0
            #file: "/mnt/c/Users/ElementZero/source/php/phleb-manager/vendor/symfony/form/Form.php"
            #line: 1137
            -previous: TransformationFailedException {#523 ▶}
            trace: {▶}
          }
          -defaultDataSet: true
          -lockSetData: false
        }
      ]
      -orderedKeys: array:3 [▶]
      -managedCursors: []
    }
    -errors: []
    -submitted: true
    -clickedButton: null
    -modelData: PatientSearch {#501 ▶}
    -normData: PatientSearch {#501 ▶}
    -viewData: PatientSearch {#501 ▶}
    -extraData: []
    -transformationFailure: null
    -defaultDataSet: true
    -lockSetData: false
  }
  -errors: []
}

Answer 1

Use the empty_data option to do this.

$builder
     ->add('someDate', \Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\DateType::class, [
        'widget' => 'single_text',
        'required' => false,
        'empty_data' => '',
     ])
;

Answer 2

You should allow put null in method setDateOfBirth. The correct version:

public function setDateOfBirth(?\DateTimeInterface $DateOfBirth): self
{
    $this->DateOfBirth = $DateOfBirth;

    return $this;
}

Because entity is populated values from request by setters before validating

Answer 3

The default value of by_reference option in DateType, DateTimeType and TimeType is false.

So in here $this->propertyAccessor->setValue($data, $propertyPath, $propertyValue); is called and here {An instance of PatientSearch}->setDateOfBirth(null) is called.

But argument for setDateOfBirth(\DateTimeInterface $DateOfBirth) is not nullable. So you get that error.

You can prevent the error with making argument nullable like this:

public function setDateOfBirth(?\DateTimeInterface $DateOfBirth): self
{
    $this->DateOfBirth = $DateOfBirth;

    return $this;
}

or turning by_reference true like this:

->add('DateOfBirth', DateType::class, array(
    'required' => false,
    'widget' => 'single_text',
    'by_reference' => true,
))

Answer 4

I wound up just using a TextType to do this as it was easier and there didn't seem to be a solution with using a DateType. In fact it looks like this is a issue being reviewed on the Symfony github issues (ticket here) as the DateTimeType/DateType doesn't seem to work properly with the empty_data attribute.

The trick here is when you get the field it is a date type, but when you set it the type is a string which attempts to convert to datetime and if it fails then the field is just not set. The field itself is still a date data type.

Type file

->add('DateOfBirth', TextType::class, array(
    'required' => false,
    'empty_data' => null,
    'attr' => array(
        'placeholder' => 'mm/dd/yyyy'
    )))

Twig file

{{ form_widget(search_form.DateOfBirth) }}

Entity file

/**
 * @ORM\Column(type="date", nullable=true)
 */
private $DateOfBirth;

...

public function getDateOfBirth(): ?\DateTimeInterface
{
    return $this->DateOfBirth;
}

public function setDateOfBirth(string $DateOfBirth): self
{
    try {

        $this->DateOfBirth = new \DateTime($DateOfBirth);
    }
    catch(\Exception $e) {
       //Do Nothing
    }

    return $this;
}