How to correctly execute a REST POST request call using FOSRest and Symfony 3.0

Question

For the API that I am creating now, I would like to send a request with a JSON body with the following contents

{"title": "foo"} 

to create a new database entry for an object called Project .

I created a controller that subclasses FOSRestController . To create a project, I took an action

 /** * @Route("/") * * @ApiDoc( * section="Project", * resource=true, * input={"class"="AppBundle\Form\API\ProjectType"}, * description="Creates a new project", * statusCodes={ * 201="Returned when successful", * } * ) * * @Method("POST") * @Rest\View(statusCode=201) */ public function createProjectAction(Request $request) { $project = new Project(); $form = $this->createForm(ProjectType::class, $project); $form->submit(($request->request->get($form->getName()))); if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) { return $project; } return View::create($form, 400); } 

ProjectType as follows

 class ProjectType extends AbstractType { public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder->add('title'); } public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver) { $resolver->setDefaults(array( 'data_class' => 'AppBundle\Entity\Project' )); } } 

However, when I try to publish JSON in the API, it responds that the title property cannot be empty, which is good because it has a validation rule set. However, it is installed. I suddenly realized that I had to send JSON with a prefix of the actual name of the object to make this work:

 {"project":{"title": "bla"}} 

Which seems a little strange to be fair, that should be enough to just post the properties.

So, based on this information, I just have 2 questions:

• Why do I need to "submit" this form using ($request->request->get($form->getName())) rather than $request being enough?
• What do I need to change for FormType to check the object as is, instead of prefixing it with the name of the entity?

Edit 1: adding or removing data_class in the default settings does not change the behavior at all.

Answer 1

This is due to how the helper method of Symfony Controller "createForm" works. The reason is that multiple forms may have the same destination URL. A prefix with the name of the form, Symfony can know which form was submitted.

This can be seen by looking at the implementation of the createForm method:

 public function createForm($type, $data = null, array $options = array()) { return $this->container->get('form.factory')->create($type, $data, $options); } 

If you do not want this behavior, it is very easy to change it:

 public function createProjectAction(Request $request) { $project = new Project(); $form = $this->get('form.factory')->createNamed(null, new ProjectType(), $project); $form->handleRequest($request); if ($form->isSubmitted() && $form->isValid()) { return $project; } return View::create($form, 400); } 

So, you basically create a "nameless" form. Since you are creating an API, it is probably a good idea to pull this into the createNamelessForm($type, $data, $options) helper method in your base controller so that you don’t have to constantly get the Factory form from the container and simplify it before our eyes.

Comment on editing

The wrapper key is not generated by the "data_class" option, but by the getName () method in your form type.