Symfony Fixtures - Get Random Entity Instance - symfony

Question

I am trying to load fixtures into my database. I have a post entity and a category entity, and a category can have many posts.
In my fixtures file I would like to create some categories and then assign a random category to each post, but I am not sure how to do this.
How can I get a reference to a random category?
<?php
namespace App\DataFixtures;
use App\Entity\Category;
use App\Entity\User;
use App\Entity\Post;
use Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Fixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
use Faker\Factory;
use Faker\Generator;
class AppFixtures extends Fixture
{
private $faker;
public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
{
$this->faker = Factory::create();
$this->addUsers($manager);
$this->addCategories($manager);
$this->addPosts($manager);
$manager->flush();
}
private function addUsers(EntityManager $em)
{
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
$user = new User();
$firstname = $this->faker->firstName;
$lastname = $this->faker->lastName;
$user->setFirstName($firstname);
$user->setLastName($lastname);
$user->setEmail($firstname.'.'.$lastname.'#gmail.com');
$user->setRoles(['ROLE_USER']);
$em->persist($user);
$this->addPosts($user);
}
}
private function addCategories(EntityManager $em)
{
$categoryHome = new Category();
$categoryHome->setName('Home');
$em->persist($categoryHome);
$categoryWork = new Category();
$categoryWork->setName('Work');
$em->persist($categoryWork);
}
public function addPosts(EntityManager $em, User $user){
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
$post = new Post();
$post->setUser($user);
// How can I assign the category randomly?
$post->setCaterory(????)
$em->persist($post);
}
}
}

Answer 1

If you need to create random data (for example for presentation) I think better choice would be using AliceBundle https://github.com/hautelook/AliceBundle which can do this out of box via relations. Plus it will be same on every load of fixtures.
But to answer your question. You make list of categories you created and then just choose one randomly.
<?php
namespace App\DataFixtures;
use App\Entity\Category;
use App\Entity\User;
use App\Entity\Post;
use Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Fixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
use Faker\Factory;
use Faker\Generator;
class AppFixtures extends Fixture
{
private $faker;
private $categories;
public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
{
$this->faker = Factory::create();
$this->addUsers($manager);
$this->addCategories($manager);
$this->addPosts($manager);
$manager->flush();
}
private function addUsers(EntityManager $em)
{
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
$user = new User();
$firstname = $this->faker->firstName;
$lastname = $this->faker->lastName;
$user->setFirstName($firstname);
$user->setLastName($lastname);
$user->setEmail($firstname.'.'.$lastname.'#gmail.com');
$user->setRoles(['ROLE_USER']);
$em->persist($user);
$this->addPosts($user);
}
}
private function addCategories(EntityManager $em)
{
$categoryHome = new Category();
$categoryHome->setName('Home');
$em->persist($categoryHome);
$this->categories[] = $categoryHome;
$categoryWork = new Category();
$categoryWork->setName('Work');
$em->persist($categoryWork);
$this->categories[] = $categoryWork;
}
public function addPosts(EntityManager $em, User $user){
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
$post = new Post();
$post->setUser($user);
$post->setCaterory($this->categories[rand(0, count($this->categories))]);
$em->persist($post);
}
}
}

Answer 2

In AddPost Function Add this
public function addPosts(EntityManager $em, User $user){
$categories = $manager->getRepository(Category::class)->findAll();
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
$post = new Post();
$post->setUser($user);
$category = $categories[array_rand($categories)];
$post->setCategory($category)
$em->persist($post);
}
}
}