Symfony: ManyToMany table extra columns - symfony

Question

I have a many to many table for User and House, called user_house. Instead of just two columns: user_id and house_id, i want to add 3 more: eg action, created_at, updated_at. How can I do this?
I cannot find any relevant docs on this.
The following just creates a separate table with two columns in it.
class User extends EntityBase
{
...
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\House")
*/
protected $action;
Basically, what I want to achieve is:
in the user_house table the combination of user_id, house_id, action should be unique.
when a user clicks a "view" on a house, user_house table gets updated with some user_id, some house_id, view, now(), now()
when a user clicks a "like" on a house, user_house table gets updated with some user_id, some house_id, like, now(), now()
when a user clicks a "request a call" on a house, user_house table gets updated with some user_id, some house_id, contact, now(), now()
Could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to break your ManyToMany relation to OneToMany and ManyToOne by introducing a junction entity called as UserHasHouses, This way you could add multiple columns to your junction table user_house
User Entity
/**
* User
* #ORM\Table(name="user")
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class User
{
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="NameSpace\YourBundle\Entity\UserHasHouses", mappedBy="users",cascade={"persist","remove"} )
*/
protected $hasHouses;
}
House Entity
/**
* Group
* #ORM\Table(name="house")
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class House
{
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="NameSpace\YourBundle\Entity\UserHasHouses", mappedBy="houses",cascade={"persist","remove"} )
*/
protected $hasUsers;
}
UserHasHouses Entity
/**
* UserHasHouses
* #ORM\Table(name="user_house")
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class UserHasHouses
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="NameSpace\YourBundle\Entity\House", cascade={"persist"}, fetch="LAZY")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="house_id", referencedColumnName="id")
*/
protected $houses;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="NameSpace\YourBundle\Entity\User", cascade={"persist","remove"}, fetch="LAZY" )
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="user_id", referencedColumnName="id",nullable=true)
*/
protected $users;
/**
* #var \DateTime
* #ORM\Column(name="created_at", type="datetime")
*/
protected $createdAt;
/**
* #var \DateTime
* #ORM\Column(name="updated_at", type="datetime")
*/
protected $updatedAt;
//... add other properties
public function __construct()
{
$this->createdAt= new \DateTime('now');
}
}
have additional column in ManyToMany join table in Doctrine (Symfony2)