Re: Handling unspecified number of sub-forms with Zend_Form

Hi, little code I'd like to share...hopefully you find it useful.
I had similer issue lately. Basically you build your forms like
[stuff1][field] .....[stuff2][field]    etc etc......     with
javascript (I used ajax).

I just assign on rendering the view..  variable with current number of
subforms... then on each ajax call
I just increment this javascript variable (it doesn't need to be
sequential at all)...just increment each time.
So I know that it returns nonconficting [stuffN][field] - For the ajax
returning I use ::assignSubForm() method mentioned
below and just echo $main_form->$subFormName


Then on post you have stuff like  [stuff1][field]
..[stuff132][field]...[stuff2][field]    etc...

//I got some specifics on decorators..you can ignore them... I am using
view script decorator for rending....thats why
//have to use assignBelongsTo()  probably can ignore this too in your
scenario

So you have two cases:
1.  When you have to build form based on request data... (because stuff
dynamiccally piles in there)
2.  When you have to build form based on db data... (regular scenario)

$foo =
Form_Abstract::buildSubFormFromRequest($request,'Form_Subform_Something','something');
$formContainingSubForms = $foo['form_container'];
$subFormNames = $foo['subFormNames']; //in case we want to address one
by one e.g $formContaintingSubForms->something1

Not really sure what you mean by second level of subforms..... I was
thinking of doing
stuff[1][field] stuff[2][field]    etc...    so you take directly stuff
later...but found issues with rendering just one element
$mainForm->stuff->"1"  would not render stuff[1][field] as it doesn't
see whole decorator level and renders not as expected.

Form_Abstract{

public static function
buildSubFormFromRequest($request,$subFormClass,$subFormName)
    {
        $form_container = new Zend_Form();
        $form_container->setDecorators(array('FormElements'));
        $names = array();
        $params = $request->getParams();
        foreach ($params as $index => $param) {
            if (preg_match("#^{$subFormName}\d+$#",$index)) {
               
Form_Abstract::assignSubForm($form_container,$subFormClass,null,array($index=>$param));
                $names[] = $index;
            }
        }
        return array ('form_container' => $form_container,'subFormNames'
=> $names);
    }

    public static function
assignSubForm($mainForm,$subFormClass,$subformName,$assignData = null)
    {
        if (!$assignData) {
            $subForm = new $subFormClass();
            $subForm->assignBelongsTo($subformName);
            $subForm->removeDecorator('form');
            $mainForm->addSubForm($subForm, $subformName);
        } else {
            foreach ($assignData as $subName => $subFormData) {
                $subForm = new $subFormClass();
                $subForm->assignBelongsTo($subName);
                $subForm->removeDecorator('form');
                $subForm->setDefaults($subFormData);
                $mainForm->addSubForm($subForm, $subName);
            }
        }
    }
}

Matthew Weier O'Phinney wrote: