Creating column type extension

Column type extensions are incredibly powerful: they allow you to modify any existing column types across the entire system.

They have 2 main use-cases:

1. You want to add a specific feature to a single column type;
2. You want to add a generic feature to several types;

Defining the column type extension

First, create the column type extension class extending from AbstractTypeExtension (you can implement ColumnTypeExtensionInterface instead if you prefer):

// src/DataTable/Column/Extension/TextTypeExtension.php
namespace App\DataTable\Column\Extension;

use Kreyu\Bundle\DataTableBundle\Column\Type\TextColumnType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractTypeExtension;

class TextTypeExtension extends AbstractTypeExtension
{
    public static function getExtendedTypes(): iterable
    {
        // return [ColumnType::class] to modify (nearly) every column in the system
        return [TextColumnType::class];
    }
}

The only method you must implement is getExtendedTypes(), which is used to configure which field types you want to modify.

Registering the extension as a service

Column type extensions must be registered as services and tagged with the kreyu_data_table.column.type_extension tag. If you're using the default services.yaml configuration, this is already done for you, thanks to autoconfiguration.

Once the extension is registered, any method that you've overridden (e.g. buildView()) will be called whenever any column of the given type is built.

Generic column type extensions

You can modify several column types at once by specifying their common parent. For example, several column types inherit from the TextType column type (such as EmailType, LinkType, etc.). A column type extension applying to TextType (i.e. whose getExtendedType() method returns TextType::class) would apply to all of these column types.

In the same way, since all column types natively available in the bundle inherit from the ColumnType, a column type extension applying to ColumnType would apply to all of these. Also keep in mind that if you created (or are using) a custom column type, it's possible that it does not extend ColumnType, and so your column type extension may not be applied to it.

Another option is to return multiple column types in the getExtendedTypes() method to extend all of them.