symfony2 file lost upon form error

Question

I am using a standard implementation of file upload in connection with doctrine, as per the example on the symfony2 website tutorials.

When my upload form encounters an error in validation, and sends the user back to the form with error messages, it looses the file chosen for upload, although if I var_dump my $entity->file I can see that it has the file...

    //if form is valid, do some stuff... if not:
    else {

        //var_dump($entity->file); //This works, I get my file
        //die;

        //Get and check the folder chosen as parent
        $entity->setFolder( $this->checkFolderId($request->request->get('folder')) ); //will cause die() if folder doesn't belong to this company

        $folders = $this->getFolders();

        return $this->render('BizTVMediaManagementBundle:Image:new.html.twig', array(
            'entity' => $entity,
            'form'   => $form->createView(),
            'folders' => $folders,
            'fileExists' => $fileExists,
        ));

    }

After this is put to the twig view, there is nothing in the file field.

Here is my entity...

<?php

namespace BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

/**
 * BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Image
 *
 * @ORM\Table(name="image")
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\HasLifecycleCallbacks
 */
class Image
{
    /**
     * @var integer $id
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @var string $name

     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=255)
     * @Assert\NotBlank
     */
    private $name;

    /**
     * @var integer $width
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="width", type="integer")
     */
    private $width;

    /**
     * @var integer $height
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="height", type="integer")
     */
    private $height;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255, nullable=true)
     */
    private $path;

    /**
    * @var object BizTV\BackendBundle\Entity\company
    *  
    * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="BizTV\BackendBundle\Entity\company")
    * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="company", referencedColumnName="id", nullable=false)
    */
    protected $company;     

    /**
    * @var object BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Folder
    *  
    * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Folder")
    * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="folder", referencedColumnName="id", nullable=true)
    */
    protected $folder;


    /**
     * @Assert\File(maxSize="6000000")
     */
     public $file;


    /**
     * @ORM\PrePersist()
     * @ORM\PreUpdate()
     */
    public function preUpload()
    {
        if (null !== $this->file) {
            // do whatever you want to generate a unique name
            $this->path = sha1(uniqid(mt_rand(), true)).'.'.$this->file->guessExtension();
        }
    }

    /**
     * @ORM\PostPersist()
     * @ORM\PostUpdate()
     */
    public function upload()
    {
        if (null === $this->file) {
            return;
        }

        // if there is an error when moving the file, an exception will
        // be automatically thrown by move(). This will properly prevent
        // the entity from being persisted to the database on error
        $this->file->move($this->getUploadRootDir(), $this->path);

        unset($this->file);
    }

    /**
     * @ORM\PostRemove()
     */
    public function removeUpload()
    {
        if ($file = $this->getAbsolutePath()) {
            unlink($file);
        }
    }    

    public function getAbsolutePath()
    {
        return null === $this->path ? null : $this->getUploadRootDir().'/'.$this->path;
    }

    public function getWebPath()
    {
        return null === $this->path ? null : $this->getUploadDir().'/'.$this->path;
    }

    protected function getUploadRootDir()
    {
        // the absolute directory path where uploaded documents should be saved
        return __DIR__.'/../../../../web/'.$this->getUploadDir();

    }

    protected function getUploadDir()
    {
        // get rid of the __DIR__ so it doesn't screw when displaying uploaded doc/image in the view.
        return 'uploads/images';
    }


    /**
     * Get id
     *
     * @return integer 
     */
    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    /**
     * Set name
     *
     * @param string $name
     */
    public function setName($name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    /**
     * Get name
     *
     * @return string 
     */
    public function getName()
    {
        return $this->name;
    }

    /**
     * Set width
     *
     * @param integer $width
     */
    public function setWidth($width)
    {
        $this->width = $width;
    }

    /**
     * Get width
     *
     * @return integer 
     */
    public function getWidth()
    {
        return $this->width;
    }

    /**
     * Set height
     *
     * @param integer $height
     */
    public function setHeight($height)
    {
        $this->height = $height;
    }

    /**
     * Get height
     *
     * @return integer 
     */
    public function getHeight()
    {
        return $this->height;
    }

    /**
     * Set path
     *
     * @param string $path
     */
    public function setPath($path)
    {
        $this->path = $path;
    }

    /**
     * Get path
     *
     * @return string 
     */
    public function getPath()
    {
        return $this->path;
    }

    /**
     * Set company
     *
     * @param BizTV\BackendBundle\Entity\company $company
     */
    public function setCompany(\BizTV\BackendBundle\Entity\company $company)
    {
        $this->company = $company;
    }

    /**
     * Get company
     *
     * @return BizTV\BackendBundle\Entity\company 
     */
    public function getCompany()
    {
        return $this->company;
    }

    /**
     * Set folder
     *
     * @param BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Folder $folder
     */
    public function setFolder(\BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Folder $folder = NULL)
    {
        $this->folder = $folder;
    }

    /**
     * Get folder
     *
     * @return BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Entity\Folder 
     */
    public function getFolder()
    {
        return $this->folder;
    }


}

And the form:

<?php

namespace BizTV\MediaManagementBundle\Form;

use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilder;

class ImageType extends AbstractType
{
    function __construct($createAction=0) {
        $this->createAction = $createAction;    
    }   

    public function buildForm(FormBuilder $builder, array $options)
    {

        $createAction = $this->createAction;

        if ($createAction) {        
            $builder
                ->add('file')
            ;
        }

        $builder
            ->add('name', 'text', array('label' => 'Namn'))
        ;
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return 'biztv_mediamanagementbundle_imagetype';
    }
}

Answer 1

You can't, for security purposes, set a file for the upload field. See here for more info. How to set the value of a HTML file field?