Why does Doctrine tries to insert new entities through relationships? - symfony

Question

I have the following Doctrine entities where EntityA is the owning side:
<?php
class EntityA
{
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="EntityB" , inversedBy="propertyA")
*/
private $propertyB;
// ....
public function setEntityB(EntityB $entBRef)
{
$this->propertyB = $entBRef;
}
}
class EntityB
{
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="EntityA", mappedBy="propertyB")
*/
private $propertyA;
// ....
}
I do also have a RepositoryB class:
<?php
class RepositoryB extends \Doctrine\Bundle\DoctrineBundle\Repository\ServiceEntityRepository
{
public function __construct(\Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ManagerRegistry $registry)
{
parent::__construct($registry, EntityB::class);
}
}
Then in my class I am trying to persist an EntityA object:
<?php
class SomeService
{
/** #var RepositoryB */
private $repositoryB;
/** #var EntityManagerInterface */
private $entityManager;
public function __construct(RepositoryB $repositoryB, EntityManagerInterface $entityManager)
{
$this->repositoryB = $repositoryB;
$this->entityManager = $entityManager;
}
public function testSomething()
{
$entBRef = $this->repositoryB->find(1);
$newEnt = (new EntityA());
$newEnt->setEntityB($entBRef);
$this->entityManager->persist($newEnt);
$this->flush();
}
}
But I've got the following error:
A new entity was found through the relationship 'EntityA#propertyB'
that was not configured to cascade persist operations for entity:
EntityB. To solve this issue: Either explicitly call
EntityManager#persist() on this unknown entity or configure cascade
Here is how my doctrine.yaml file looks like:
parameters:
env(DATABASE_URL_WRITE): ''
services:
gedmo.listener.timestampable:
class: Org\CompBundle\Gedmo\Timestampable\TimestampableListener
tags:
- { name: doctrine.event_subscriber, connection: default }
calls:
- [ setAnnotationReader, [ "#annotation_reader" ] ]
gedmo.listener.loggable:
class: Gedmo\Loggable\LoggableListener
tags:
- { name: doctrine.event_subscriber, connection: default }
calls:
- [ setAnnotationReader, [ "#annotation_reader" ] ]
gedmo.listener.deleteable:
class: Gedmo\SoftDeleteable\SoftDeleteableListener
tags:
- { name: doctrine.event_subscriber, connection: default }
calls:
- [ setAnnotationReader, [ '#annotation_reader' ] ]
doctrine:
dbal:
default_connection: default
types:
microseconds: Org\CompBundle\DBAL\Types\DateTimeMicrosecondsType
connections:
read_only:
url: '%env(resolve:DATABASE_URL_READ)%'
driver: 'pdo_mysql'
server_version: '5.7'
charset: utf8mb4
default_table_options:
charset: utf8mb4
collate: utf8mb4_unicode_ci
default:
url: '%env(resolve:DATABASE_URL_WRITE)%'
driver: 'pdo_mysql'
server_version: '5.7'
charset: utf8mb4
default_table_options:
charset: utf8mb4
collate: utf8mb4_unicode_ci
orm:
auto_generate_proxy_classes: '%kernel.debug%'
default_entity_manager: default
entity_managers:
filters:
filters:
softdeleteable:
class: Gedmo\SoftDeleteable\Filter\SoftDeleteableFilter
enabled: true
read_only:
connection: read_only
naming_strategy: doctrine.orm.naming_strategy.underscore_number_aware
mappings:
gedmo_loggable:
type: annotation
prefix: Gedmo\Loggable\Entity
dir: "%kernel.root_dir%/../vendor/gedmo/doctrine-extensions/lib/Gedmo/Loggable/Entity"
alias: GedmoLoggable
is_bundle: false
App:
is_bundle: false
type: annotation
dir: '%kernel.project_dir%/vendor/org/comp-bundle/Entity'
prefix: 'Org\CompBundle\Entity'
alias: Drm
dql:
datetime_functions:
timetosec: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\TimeToSec
timediff: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\TimeDiff
now: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\Now
numeric_functions:
rand: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\Rand
default:
connection: default
filters:
softdeleteable:
class: Gedmo\SoftDeleteable\Filter\SoftDeleteableFilter
enabled: true
naming_strategy: doctrine.orm.naming_strategy.underscore_number_aware
auto_mapping: true
mappings:
gedmo_loggable:
type: annotation
prefix: Gedmo\Loggable\Entity
dir: "%kernel.root_dir%/../vendor/gedmo/doctrine-extensions/lib/Gedmo/Loggable/Entity"
alias: GedmoLoggable
App:
is_bundle: false
type: annotation
dir: '%kernel.project_dir%/vendor/org/comp-bundle/Entity'
prefix: 'Org\CompBundle\Entity'
alias: Drm
dql:
datetime_functions:
timetosec: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\TimeToSec
timediff: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\TimeDiff
now: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\Now
numeric_functions:
rand: DoctrineExtensions\Query\Mysql\Rand
Last but not least I do have the following setup at org\compbundle\Resources\services.yaml:
services:
_defaults:
autowire: true
autoconfigure: true
public: false
bind:
$logger: '#Psr\Log\LoggerInterface'
Org\CompBundle\Repository\:
resource: '../../Repository/{Case,Main}'
exclude: ['../../Repository/**/*Interface.php']
tags: ['doctrine.repository_service']
Org\CompBundle\Interfaces\Queues\QueueRepositoryInterface:
class: Org\CompBundle\Repository\DrmCase\QueueRepository
Org\CompBundle\Interfaces\Cases\CasesRepositoryInterface:
class: Org\CompBundle\Repository\DrmCase\CasesRepository
Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ManagerRegistry: '#doctrine'
What I have done so far?
Read a lot of post here on SO leading to the same solution add cascade={"persist"} to the owning side which I did and I must say did not work.
Read Doctrine docs looking for mistakes on my entities definition but so far everything looks fine to me.
I did found this which is helpful but I keep questioning myself why would Doctrine tries to insert and existent entity just because of the reference? Is there any way to get this working?
I do not want the EntityB persisted nor updated, it already exists. I do want the new EntityA have a FK to an existent record in EntityB.

Answer 1

During the weekend a work colleague did work very hard to find out what was causing the issue and after a lot of hours debugging how Doctrine and the UoW works he found where the problem was: how Doctrine and the Repository pattern works. Let me explain a little bit.
If you check this closer and go deep inside Doctrine you will notice how the following code leads to two different entities manager:
public function __construct(RepositoryB $repositoryB, EntityManagerInterface $entityManager)
{
$this->repositoryB = $repositoryB; // spin his own EM
$this->entityManager = $entityManager; // this is a new EM object
}
So:
$entBRef = $this->repositoryB->find(1);
Is being fetched through another EM and since I am using $this->entityManager to persist/flush the recently created entityA object then Doctrine sees $entBRef as a new entity that has to be persisted.
Our solution was to fetch everything through the same repository class which I do not like so much because we are querying things that does not belongs there and we had to ever persist/flush using the same EM.
If you have any other solution it is more than welcome.