Symfony - Use parameters in Entity assert annotations

Question

I'm trying to set the same phone regex everywhere on my website, using a pattern defined in the app/config/parameters.yml

parameters:    
    phone_regex: /^[+][3][3]\d{9}$/

How can i retrieve this patern in my entities assert annotations ?

/**
 * @var string
 * @Assert\NotBlank(message = "notBlank")
 * @Assert\Regex(
 *     pattern="%phone_regex%",
 *     message="phone"
 * )
 * @ORM\Column(name="contact_phone", type="string", length=255)
 */
private $contactPhone;

The code above does not work, it generates html without the regex

<input type="text" id="client_contactPhone" name="client[contactPhone]" required="required" maxlength="255" pattern=".*phone_regex.*" class="form-control">

by 'not work', what did you mean ? error ? not what you wanted ? — t-n-y, Jul 11 '17 at 13:52
In my config.yml there is `validation: { enable_annotations: true }`. I've edited the question to explain what I mean by not work — Theolephant, Jul 11 '17 at 14:24

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 11 '17 at 13:52

The only way you can do this is by creating your own custom validation constraint. Pretty easy actually once you've done it in one case.

A good documentation can be found here: http://symfony.com/doc/current/validation/custom_constraint.html

Basically a summary what you could do:

Build a Constraint possibly extending the Regex Constraint
Build the corresponding Validator (injecting container or parameters into it to get your regex value)
Use your own Constraint instead of the existing one.

There is currently no known option to use parameters in the existing annotation.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 12 '17 at 03:49

Joe has a good solution, but my question is - why have this as a parameter at all? Is this something you would ever plan on overriding in the future? I'm guessing not. Instead, you could simply make a class w/constant that holds the information you need:

class Phone
{
    const VALID_REGEX = '/^[+][3][3]\d{9}$/';
}

Then, for your annotations:

/**
 * @var string
 * @Assert\NotBlank(message = "notBlank")
 * @Assert\Regex(
 *     pattern=Phone::VALID_REGEX,
 *     message="phone"
 * )
 * @ORM\Column(name="contact_phone", type="string", length=255)
 */
private $contactPhone;

This way you're still using the Regex validator and not reinventing the wheel with another custom validation type.

The other main benefit is that you can use this everywhere in your code without actually having to inject the parameter to a service, or anything else. Plus it's easy to access class constants from Twig.

Symfony - Use parameters in Entity assert annotations

2 Answers2