This library provides a bidirectional abstraction layer between HTML <form>'s (and their elements) and PHP objects. Such a layer makes it easier to map form fields to classes, validate them and transform back to HTML containers.
- OOP representation of HTML forms and their elements (input, select, button, file uploads, etc)
- data de-coupling and object model that cares about your app architecture and fits into MVC pattern
- mapping of raw incoming data (GET, POST) to objects of forms and forms elements
- builtin and extensible data validation
- really easy interaction with mapping and validation errors
- builtin form signatures to prevent CSRF attacks
- transformation of objects to raw HTML, taking predefined and raw values into consideration
The history of PHP provides a lot of great examples of template engines and HTML abstractions: Smarty, HTML_FormPersister, etc. Still, there is no truly OOP solution, which is important when dealing with huge projects.
Perhaps, abstraction is useless when we deal with simple form that consists of one or two input fields:
<input type="text" name="email" value="<?=htmlSpecialChars($_GET['email'])?>" />The complexity comes when we need to generate a single or multivalue selectbox with the set of predefined values, when some of them may be default or selected:
<select name="fruits" multiple="multiple" id="fruit-selector" class="f-sel">
<? foreach ($fruitsOptions as $fruitId => $fruitName) { ?>
<option name="<?= $fruitId?> " <? // check if $fruitId is selected
Uf, that is not easy...
With HTML Form Abstraction such a mess goes away forever. Example:
$myForm->fruits->toHtml([
"id" => fruit-selector",
"class" => 'f-sel'
])IMPORTANT!
This library was developed to be compatible with Phoebius framework (https://github.com/phoebius/phoebius) and thus it is not a standalone library yet.
This library is licensed under the LGPL.
class PhotoEditForm extends Form
{
/**
* @var Photo
*/
private $photo;
function __construct(Photo $photo, HttpUrl $url)
{
$this->photo = $photo;
parent::__construct(__CLASS__, $url, $signed);
$this->addControl(FormControl::string("name"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::email("email"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::password("password"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::string("website", false));
$this->addControl(FormControl::textarea("about"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::image("image"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::file("metafile"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::fileSet("images"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::checkbox("is_private"));
$this->addControl(FormControl::checkboxSet("licence", array(0 => 'free', 1 => 'pay'), array(0, 1)));
$this->addControl(FormControl::select("quality", array(0 => 'low', 1 => 'normal', 2 => 'high'), 0));
$this->addControl(FormControl::selectMultiple("license", array(0 => 'free', 1 => 'pay'), array(0, 1)));
$this->addControl(FormControl::radioGroup("priority", array(0 => 'low', 1 => 'normal', 2 => 'high'), 0));
$this->addButton("save", "Save");
$this->addButton("delete", "Delete");
}
}// signless:
$form = new SomeForm();
$form->import($request->getPost());
if ($form->hasErrors()) {
// import failed
}
else {
// all ok
}
return new View("auth", array('form' => $form));
// signed:
$form = new SomeForm(..., $signed = true);
try {
$form->handle($request);
if (!$form->hasErrors())
return "/";
}
catch (FormSubmitException $e) {
// not matched or invalidated
}
$form->sign($request);
return new View("auth", array('form' => $form));
<?= $this->form->getHeadHtml(array('id' => 'page-form'))?>
<div class="row">
<label class="title"><?= $this->form->title->getLabel()?></label>
<div class="field"><?= $this->form->title->toHtml()?></div>
<div class="error"><?= $this->form->title->getErrorMessage()?></div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<label class="title"><?= $this->form->path->getLabel()?></label>
<div class="field"><?= $this->form->path->toHtml()?></div>
<div class="error"><?= $this->form->path->getErrorMessage()?></div>
</div>
<div class="row">
<label class="title"><?= $this->form->text->getLabel()?></label>
<div class="field"><?= $this->form->text->toHtml(array('cols' => 100, 'rows' => 20))?></div>
</div>
<div class="actions">
<div class="loading">
<span style="visibility: hidden;"></span>
</div>
<div class="buttons">
<?= $this->form->submit->toHtml()?>
<? if (isset($this->form->delete)) echo $this->form->delete->toHtml(); ?>
</div>
</div>
<?= $this->form->getHeelHtml()?>