InitialValue is not working for the whole form

[vasilich6107]

Hi @joanpablo

Regarding initial value

This PR #442 aimed to introduce initial value support at the abstract control level.

Current implementation does support initial value only on the FormControl level, which is pretty limiting the usage
It would be nice to have initial value at AbstractControl level

While I can read
form.value and form.rawValue the form.defaultValue is inaccessible

[vasilich6107]

Does this patch makes sense?

Subject: [PATCH] d
---
Index: lib/src/models/models.dart
IDEA additional info:
Subsystem: com.intellij.openapi.diff.impl.patch.CharsetEP
<+>UTF-8
===================================================================
diff --git a/lib/src/models/models.dart b/lib/src/models/models.dart
--- a/lib/src/models/models.dart	(revision 3eea8827ddf8d9c80b6ef92a456296b0e8eb5101)
+++ b/lib/src/models/models.dart	(date 1763811293139)
@@ -201,6 +201,8 @@
   /// The current value of the control.
   T? get value => _value;
 
+  T? get defaultValue => _value;
+
   /// Sets the value to the control
   set value(T? value) {
     updateValue(value);
@@ -907,6 +909,7 @@
   /// - If [nonNullable] is `false`, this is `null`.
   ///
   /// When [reset] is called without a value, the control resets to this value.
+  @override
   T? get defaultValue => _defaultValue;
 
   /// True if the control is marked as focused.
@@ -1211,6 +1214,8 @@
   /// Retrieves all values regardless of disabled status of children controls.
   T get rawValue;
 
+  T get defaultValue;
+
   /// Emits when a control is added or removed from collection.
   Stream<List<AbstractControl<Object?>>> get collectionChanges =>
       _collectionChanges.stream;
@@ -1370,6 +1375,18 @@
 
         return MapEntry(key, control.value);
       });
+  /// Gets the value of the [FormGroup], including any disabled controls.
+  ///
+  /// Retrieves all values regardless of disabled status.
+  @override
+  Map<String, Object?> get defaultValue =>
+      _controls.map<String, Object?>((key, control) {
+        if (control is FormControlCollection<dynamic>) {
+          return MapEntry(key, control.defaultValue);
+        }
+
+        return MapEntry(key, control.value);
+      });
 
   @override
   bool contains(String name) {
@@ -1836,6 +1853,15 @@
           return (control as FormControlCollection<T?>).rawValue;
         }
 
+        return control.value;
+      }).toList();@override
+
+  List<T?> get defaultValue =>
+      _controls.map<T?>((control) {
+        if (control is FormControlCollection<T?>) {
+          return (control as FormControlCollection<T?>).defaultValue;
+        }
+
         return control.value;
       }).toList();
 

[joanpablo]

Hi @vasilich6107
I'll think about it carefully. I understand your point of view of moving the default value at AbdtractControl level. It sounds reasonable. Additionally I want to double check in Angular Reactive Forms, how this is handled just as a reference.
The code you shared is hard to read because of the formatting, but I will givi it a look. At first glance I don't think the following code is correct, since the default value should not depend on the current value:

/// The current value of the control.
   T? get value => _value;
 
+  T? get defaultValue => _value;

[vasilich6107]

Hi @joanpablo
Would it be possible to reiterate on this issue?

One additional example is when we have an array of items, default value and ability to reset seems impossible to use as far as controls are added to the form only after adding an item to the list.

so if we load the form, remove single item from array - we will have no way to reset it to the inital state

[joanpablo]

Ok so one use case if what you mentioned, a Form that gets a field deleted, and now I want to reset it to its initial state (before the field was removed). Is there any other use case we should consider?

[vasilich6107]

Hey @joanpablo
Happy to see you back

Another case is adding elements to the list

Whenever new element is added it produces a subset of controls. Technically when you add new empty element then edit it and then check - it would work, cause the control value would change from empty string to some value. But will probably fail if array item is being added with pre-populated data.