Issue 1:
I'm running Symfony2 2.6.6, nginx 1.7.12 on linux/64.

env VARS

SYMFONY__DATABASE__PASSWORD => "testtesttest"
SYMFONY__DATABASE__USER => "root"

have been set in shell & nginx.

As documented

"How to Set external Parameters in the Service Container":
http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/configuration/external_parameters.html

"Now that you have declared an environment variable, it will be present in the PHP $_SERVER global variable. Symfony then automatically sets all $_SERVER variables prefixed with SYMFONY__ as parameters in the service container.

You can now reference these parameters wherever you need them."

Verifying,

php -i | grep SYMFONY__DATABASE
SYMFONY__DATABASE__PASSWORD => "testtesttest"
SYMFONY__DATABASE__USER => "root"
_SERVER["SYMFONY__DATABASE__PASSWORD"] => "testtesttest"
_SERVER["SYMFONY__DATABASE__USER"] => "root"

setting symfony parameters

cat ./app/config/parameters.yml
parameters:
database_driver: pdo_mysql
database_host: 127.0.0.1
database_port: 3306
database_name: test_01
database_user: "%database.user%"
database_password: "%database.password%"
mailer_transport: smtp
mailer_host: ~
mailer_user: "%mailer.user%"
mailer_password: "%mailer.password%"
locale: en
secret: xxxx

symfony "at shell" should inherit the ENV-defined values

user <= "%database_user%" <= "%database.user%" <= SYMFONY__DATABASE__USER <= "root"
password <= "%database_password%" <= "%database.password%" <= SYMFONY__DATABASE__PASSWORD <= "testtesttest"

from site root, DB create with doctrine fails with "connection refused"

php app/console doctrine:database:create
Could not create database for connection named `test_01`
SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused

From shell, with mysql tools, there's no problem

mysqladmin -u root -p create test_01
Enter password:
=> "testtesttest"

mysqladmin -u root -p
...
+------------------------------+
| Databases |
+------------------------------+
...
| test_01 |
+------------------------------+

Also, editing

./app/config/parameters.yml
...
- database_user: "%database.user%"
- database_password: "%database.password%"
+ database_user: root
+ database_password: "testtesttest"
...

All doctrine cmds, e.g.,

php app/console doctrine:database:drop --force
php app/console doctrine:database:create
php app/console doctrine:schema:create

now work without error

Issue 2:
I think that in order to provide a better user experience, we should improve the error messages shipped with the Form component by default. I am not talking about the error messages in the Validator component.

If I use the Validator component stand-alone, getting an error such as "This value is not a valid number" is fine. If I use the Form component, displaying that message for a form field is a bit awkward. Even worse are the tons of "This value is invalid" messages.

I suggest to

Set sensible defaults for the "invalid_message" options in all core types. These defaults should be user friendly, such as "Please enter a valid email address." (or better, if you have suggestions)

Duplicate the error messages of the Validator component into the Form component and change the translations to be more user friendly (in the web form context, again, such as "Please enter a valid number" or better). This will mean a bit more maintenance work, but much better UX.

Opinions? How would you ideally like the error messages to be when you submit an erroneous field?