如何使用定义为服务的表单将数组数据映射到Symfony2实体？

Question

I need to map data coming in the form of an array to an entity. The data does not come from a request, but is fetched from a remote source by the application.

I want to use a form to map the data to an entity. This is how I instantiate the form as a service and pass it to my custom class (ApiResponseMapper):

book_form_type:
    class: Air\BookishBundle\Form\Type\BookType
    name:
        - { name: form.type, alias: book_type }

book_form:
    factory_service: form.factory
    factory_method: create
    class: Symfony\Component\Form\Form
    arguments: [@book_form_type]

api_response_mapper:
    class: Air\BookishBundle\Lib\ApiResponseMapper
    arguments: [@bestseller_list_form, @book_form]

In ApiResponseMapper, I want to be able to map the data into the array:

public function mapResponse($response)
{
    $form = $this->bookForm; // bookForm is a now a memeber of this class.
    $form->submit($response);

}

This will not map the $response (array data) to my Book entity (the bookForm has Book class set as the data_class). I'm starting with Symfony, and I'm really not sure how I can use this form to map the $response. The 'traditional' method would be to call something like this in a controler: $form = $this->createForm(new BookType(), $Book);, but as you can see, this case is different.

I need to bypass handleRequest() and call submit() manually. How do I map the data onto the entity in this scenario?

Answer 1

Well, the solution was rather simple. Maybe it will help somebody out in the future. My method looks like this:

public function mapResponse($response)
{
    $Book = new Book();
    $form = $this->bookForm;
    $form->setData($Book);
    $form->submit($response);
    return $Book;
}

The class being mapped onto should be instantiated and passed as a parameter to setData() called on the form object. Notice that this particular example does not leverage data validation with the form.