symfony querybuilder for search by relation in collection - symfony

Question

I have Entity Application with relation to Applicant
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity=Applicant::class, inversedBy="applications")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(nullable=false)
*/
private $applicant;
now I try create QueryBuilder for search application by Applicant name in ApplicantRepository i have
public function searchByName($searchString)
{
return $this->createQueryBuilder('a')
->andWhere('a.name LIKE :phrase')->setParameter('phrase', '%'.$searchString.'%')
->getQuery()
->getResult();
}
in controller I have
$applicants = $applicantRepository->searchByName($searchString);
Now I want search Application with applicant name in this applicants collection. May I use QueryBuilder fot that?
I am trying something like this
public function getApprovedSearchByApplicants($applicants)
{
return $this->createQueryBuilder('a')
->andWhere('a.applicant IN (:applicants)')
->setParameter('applicants', $applicants)
->getQuery()
->getResult();
}

Answer 1

so, looking to your configuration, your Application::$applicant === Applicant::$name, just because Application::$applicant property has Applicant::$id value, by default. You can check the documentation.
So, this way, you need to make smth like this:
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity=Applicant::class, inversedBy="applications")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="applicant_name", referencedColumnName="name", nullable=false)
*/
private $applicant;
It should work.
UPDATE after question update and discussions:
So, the problem was in the testing data in the database. Bad question.

Answer 2

I did not test it, but something like the following code should do the trick. It is almost the same solution as goulashsoup proposed, but without typing raw DQL.
/**
* #param array|Applicant[] $applicants
*
* #return array|Application[]
*/
public function findByApplicants(array $applicants): array
{
$qb = $this->createQueryBuilder('a')
return $qb->innerJoin('a.applicant', 'at')
->where(
$qb->expr()->in('at.id', ':applicants')
)
->setParameter('applicants', $applicants)
->getQuery()
->getResult();
}
I don't think you need to name the function wtih "ApprovedSearch" since the method is only aware of a list of Applicant for whom you want the list of Application.

Answer 3

Search by search string:
$entityManager
->createQuery('
SELECT ct
FROM App\Entity\Application ct
JOIN ct.applicant nt
WHERE nt.name LIKE :phrase
')
->setParameters(['phrase' => "%$searchString%"])
->getResult();
Search by applicants:
$entityManager
->createQuery('
SELECT ct
FROM App\Entity\Application ct
JOIN ct.applicant nt
WHERE nt IN (:nts)
')
->setParameters(['nts' => $applicants])
->getResult();