From VendorBundle:Entity to FQCN - symfony

Question

Is there a way in Symfony to convert a string like
VendorBundle:Foo
into a FQCN like
Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo
Extra question
How Doctrine handle this? Because I've seen you can do something like (pseudocode)
->leftJoin( ..., ..., 'WITH', 'alias INSTANCE OF VendorBundle:Entity');
My question is due to
$foo = new \Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo();
$foo instanceof 'VendorBundle:Foo'; //false

Answer 1

You can use the php keyword ::class PHP.net
In your case, try something like Foo::class
This should output a string like Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo. If you see the comments at the link however, this is not guaranteed if you do not include the correct use statement in your code(use Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo) in your controller. If you correctly include that, then you can call Foo::class.
With doctrine functions, you can use the syntax you mentioned VendorBundle:Foo like this:
$manager = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$fooRepository = $manager->getRepository('VendorBundle:Foo');
$fooBar = $fooRepository->find($someId);
For your verification, you have to check
$someStringToCheck = Foo::class;
$foo = new \Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo();
$foo instanceof $someStringToCheck //true
Oddly, if you do
$foo instanceof Foo::class
It returns an error
But to use VendorBundle:Foo, then take a look at the AbstractManagerRegistry.php in \Doctrine\Common\Persistence\AbstractManagerRegistry, at the function getManagerForClass($class). You can do something in your code like:
$doctrineStyleString = 'VendorBundle:Foo';
if (strpos($doctrineStyleString, ':') !== false)
{
list($namespaceAlias, $simpleClassName) = explode(':', $doctrineStyleString, 2);
$stringWithPath = $this->getDoctrine()->getAliasNamespace($namespaceAlias) . '\\' . $simpleClassName;
}
I took the code from that function and tried it out, so stringWithPath should print you Vendor\Bundle\Entity\Foo