Forwarding formControlName to inner component in Angular

Your inner component can take @Input controlName but it won't work out of the box:

Error: formControlName must be used with a parent formGroup directive.

In order to tie your control with parent FormGroup you can define viewProvider as follows:

import { Component, Input, OnInit} from '@angular/core';
...
import { ControlContainer, FormGroupDirective } from '@angular/forms';

@Component({
  ...
  viewProviders: [
    {
      provide: ControlContainer,
      useExisting: FormGroupDirective
    }
  ]
})
export class DateWrapperComponent implements OnInit {
    @Input() controlName: string;
}

Forked Stackblitz

In case you don't know which exactly directive is provided as a ControlContainer(FormGroupDirective, FormGroupName or FormArrayName) you can use more generic approach:

viewProviders: [
  {
    provide: ControlContainer,
    useFactory: (container: ControlContainer) => container,
    deps: [[new SkipSelf(), ControlContainer]]
  }
]

Demo


I had almost same scenario and issues. My relieve came with this article by Todd Motto.

His approach is to give formGroup as parent to custom input component. Then, from this component, you can bind control (validator) and formControlName (value) to input tag.

As usually, example speaks more by himself.

Form component ts

// Reactive Forms
form: FormGroup;    

constructor(private formBuilder: FormBuilder) { }

ngOnInit() {
  // Form structure and validators
  this.form = this.formBuilder.group({
    'user' : this.formBuilder.group({
      'username' : ['', Validators.required],
      'email' : ['', [Validators.required, Validators.email]]
    }),
    'identity' : this.formBuilder.group({
      'firstname' : ['', Validators.required],
      'lastname'  : ['', Validators.required],
      'address' : this.formBuilder.group({
        'street' : ['', Validators.required],
        'city'  : ['', Validators.required],
      })
    })
  });        
}

onSubmit() {
    // Get object with same structure as form but only with values
    console.log(this.form.value);
    alert('Form is ' + (this.form.invalid ? 'invalid' : 'valid'));
}

Form component html

<form [formGroup]="form" (ngSubmit)="onSubmit()">
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['user'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'username'">
    </form-text>
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['user'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'email'">
    </form-text>
    <hr>
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['identity'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'firstname'">
    </form-text>
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['identity'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'lastname'">
    </form-text>
    <hr>
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['identity','address'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'street'">
    </form-text>
    <form-text [formGroupParent]="form.get(['identity','address'])"
               [formGroupControlName]="'city'">
    </form-text>
    <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

Custom input component ts (form-text)

// Needed to bind formControlName
@Input() formGroupParent: FormGroup;
@Input() formGroupControlName: string;
// FormControl store validators
control: FormControl;

ngOnInit() {
    // Fetch Form control (validator) from FormGroup parent
    this.control = <FormControl>this.formGroupParent.get(this.formGroupControlName);
}

Custom input component html (form-text)

<ng-container [formGroup]="formGroupParent">
  <label>{{formGroupControlName}}</label> 
  <input type="text" formControlName="{{formGroupControlName}}">
</ng-container>