Symfony2 dependent dropdown ManyToMany - ajax

Question

I have 3 entities: Company, Industry, Category
I would like to create a form where the user can input the name of the company and then selects the Industry from a dropdown list. Every Industry has Categories. When user selects a Industry I want to populate the Category list. I've read following article: http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/dynamic_form_modification.html#cookbook-form-events-submitted-data
I've created the form but when the ajax call is triggered I get following error:
Neither the property "categories" nor one of the methods "setCategories()", "__set()" or "__call()" exist and have public access in class "ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Company"
I'm on this now many days and just can't get it work. I hope somebody have some hints for me. I need a form with one input field for the company name, two dropdowns Industry and Category where Category depends on the selected Industry. Company has a ManyToMany relation to Category and Industry has a OneToMany relation too category. So far this is my code:
Edit:
I have tried the code with OneToMany instead ManyToMany relation between Company and Category.
That works fine. But what to do in case ManyToMany Relation? How to manage to load and set Categories?
my 3 entities:
class Company
{
/**
* #var integer
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=255)
*/
private $name;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Category", mappedBy="companies")
*/
private $categories;
/**
* Constructor
*/
public function __construct()
{
$this->categories = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
... setters and getters
class Industry
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=80)
* #Assert\NotBlank()
*/
private $name;
/**
* #var
*
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="Category",mappedBy="industry")
*/
private $categories;
public function __construct()
{
$this->categories = new ArrayCollection();
}
...setters and getters
class Category
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=80)
* #Assert\NotBlank()
*/
private $name;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Industry", inversedBy="categories");
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="industry_id", referencedColumnName="id",nullable=false)
*/
private $industry;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Company", inversedBy="categories");
* #ORM\JoinTable(name="categories_companies")
*/
private $companies;
... setters and getters
My Company Form Class:
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface;
use ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Industry;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormEvent;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormEvents;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormInterface;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;
class CompanyRegistrationFormType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder->add('name');
$builder->add('industry', 'entity', array(
'mapped' => false,
'class' => 'ebulucuMainBundle:Industry',
'property' => 'name',
'empty_value' => 'Choose industry',
));
$formModifier = function(FormInterface $form, $industry_id) {
if($industry_id) {
$form->add('categories', 'entity', array(
'class' => 'ebulucuMainBundle:Category',
'query_builder' => function(EntityRepository $er) use ($industry_id) {
$query = $er->createQueryBuilder('i')
->select(array('i'))
->where('i.industry_id = :industry_id')
->setParameter('industry_id', $industry_id)
->orderBy('i.name', 'ASC');
return $query;
},
'empty_value' => 'Choose category'
)
);
}
};
$builder->addEventListener(
FormEvents::PRE_SET_DATA,
function(FormEvent $event) use ($formModifier) {
$formModifier($event->getForm(), null);
}
);
//** Checks for Industry that is submitted and adds categories based on industry selection **//
$builder->get('industry')->addEventListener(
FormEvents::POST_SUBMIT, function(FormEvent $event) use ($formModifier) {
$industry_id = $event->getData();
$formModifier($event->getForm()->getParent(), $industry_id);
}
);
}
public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Company',
));
}
public function getName()
{
return 'company';
}
}
The Controller:
use ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Company;
use ebulucu\MainBundle\Form\Type\CompanyRegistrationFormType;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Template;
use ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Industry;
use ebulucu\MainBundle\Entity\Category;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
class MainController extends Controller
{
/**
* #Route("/", name="homepage")
* #Template()
*/
public function indexAction(Request $request)
{
$company = new Company();
$form = $this->createForm(new CompanyRegistrationFormType(), $company);
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('fos_user_security_login'));
}
return array(
'form' => $form->createView(),
);
}
/**
* #Route("/", name="loadIndustryCategories")
* #Template()
*/
public function loadIndustryCategories(Request $request)
{
$company = new Company();
$form = $this->createForm(new CompanyRegistrationFormType(), $company);
$form->handleRequest($request);
return array(
'form' => $form->createView(),
);
}
}
Twig Template with form and ajax call:
{% block content %}
<div>Homepage</div>
{{ form_start(form, {'attr': {'id': 'form_industry'}}) }}
{{ form_end(form) }}
{% endblock %}
{% block js%}
<script>
$('#company_industry').change( function() {
var postData = $("#form_industry").serializeArray();
var formURL = {{ path('loadIndustryCategories') }};
$.ajax(
{
url : formURL,
type: "POST",
data : postData,
success:function(data, textStatus, jqXHR)
{
//data: return data from server
},
error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown)
{
//if fails
}
});
e.preventDefault(); //STOP default action
e.unbind(); //unbind. to stop multiple form submit.
});
</script>
{% endblock %}

Answer 1

Company:categories will be a collection of entities, not a singular entity, so it shouldn't have a setCategory method, otherwise you can inadvertently remove your whole collection. Instead you will have an addCategories, removeCategories and getCategories (this could be addCategorie and removeCategorie if doctrine generated due to its 'un-pluralization').
To fix, you need to change your categories form element to a type of collection instead of an entity in CompanyRegistrationFormType.
Just checking, should a company have one category or multiple? At the moment, your code seems to be somewhat a bit of both?