Symfony update entity without changing field - symfony

Question

Is there a way to update the entity without actually changing any fields.
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$test = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:MyObject')->find($id);
$test->setName("Test");
$em->flush();
Works for example if the name was set to something else like "Test2" before. But if it was "Test" before this won't work. So I would like to remove the setName line and just update entity.
I need this cause I have a listener that will only run when MyObject changes.
I tried $em->refresh($test); but it doesn't work.

Answer 1

well, you want to update an object but anything has changed ... I recommend rethinking the implementation of your listener or you can do this (very ugly) workaround
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$test = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:MyObject')->find($id);
$originalName = $test->getName();
$test->setName("Whatever");
$em->flush();
$test->setName($originalName)
$em->flush();
I would not recommend this solution, you should really implement your listener in the way it trigger every time you needed to.

Answer 2

The events in a listener like you're describing work on the Doctrine UnitOfWork --meaning that they fire and then look at the differences between the previous state of the object and the intended state of the object. I can't think of a way to get Doctrine to persist something that hasn't changed.
In this case, I don't think you want a listener. I think you want a service that you call explicitly.
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$test = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:MyObject')->find($id);
$testService = $this->get('test_service');
$testService->whatMethodYouWantToRunRegardlessOfChanges($test);
$em->flush();
And then in TestService:
public function whatMethodYouWantToRunRegardlessOfChanges(Test $test) {
//code that you were running in your listener, called every time
}