Symfony2: Saving a collection entity confusion - symfony

Question

The disclaimer: I'm new to Symfony. Really struggling with the collection field type and simple setup of a OnetoOne relationship.
Scenario: I have a Product entity class and a Category entity class. I am using a collection field on the product to create Category items. I am picturing a separate Category Table with a Name column and a related product_id column. I know it's not typically practical. For arguments sake Category may as well be Feature or something else as I just want to establish the relationship as a scenario to extend. Ultimately Category will become an Image field allowing me to pull related images into a view.
The Problem: I've followed the cookbook article (http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/form/form_collections.html) over and over but just hitting brick wall. I'm on board with the principle but feel like I'm missing something significant. I've got a protoype form field generating from the javascript and I'm successfully persisting/saving new Products (in full) and new Categories (only in part). The related product id is not being written into the join column.
I'm sure it's a case of getters/setters not being taken care of correctly. I' relying on doctrine to generate them automatically. Or the issue may be with some unspecified requirement to set the id to the Category in the controller.
Code to follow. Help greatly appreciated as been banging this around for a couple of days and getting nowhere fast. Really frustrating as grasped all other principles really quickly and really chuffed with building a first project in symfony.
Product Entity
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\File\File;
use Vich\UploaderBundle\Mapping\Annotation as Vich;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use AppBundle\Entity\Category;
/**
* Page
*
* #ORM\Table(name="product")
* #ORM\Entity
* #Vich\Uploadable
*/
class Product
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="Title", type="string", length=255)
* #Assert\NotBlank()
*/
private $title;
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* #ORM\OnetoOne(targetEntity="Category", cascade={"persist"})
*/
protected $categorys;
public function __construct()
{
$this->categorys = new ArrayCollection();
}
}
Category Entity
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use AppBundle\Entity\Product;
/**
* Category
*
* #ORM\Table(name="category")
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class Category
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=255)
*/
private $name;
/**
* #ORM\OneToOne(targetEntity="Product", cascade={"persist"})
*/
protected $product;
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set name
*
* #param string $name
* #return Category
*/
public function setName($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get name
*
* #return string
*/
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
/**
* Set product
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Product $product
* #return Category
*/
public function setProduct(\AppBundle\Entity\Product $product = null)
{
$this->product = $product;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get product
*
* #return \AppBundle\Entity\Product
*/
public function getProduct()
{
return $this->product;
}
}
Product Type
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
use AppBundle\Entity\Product;
use AppBundle\Entity\Category;
class ProductType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder
->add('title', 'text')
->add('categorys', 'collection', array(
'type' => new CategoryType(),
'allow_add' => true,
'by_reference' => false,
))
->add('save', 'submit', array(
'attr' => array('class' => 'btn btn-default'),
))
;
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'AppBundle\Entity\Product',
));
}
public function getName()
{
return 'product';
}
}
Category Type
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Form\Type;
use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType;
use Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolver;
use AppBundle\Entity\Category;
class CategoryType extends AbstractType
{
public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options)
{
$builder->add('name', 'text');
}
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver)
{
$resolver->setDefaults(array(
'data_class' => 'AppBundle\Entity\Category',
));
}
public function getName()
{
return 'category';
}
}
Product Controller: New Product
/**
* #Route("admin/product/new", name="product_add")
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function newAction(Request $request)
{
$product = new Product();
$form = $this->createForm(new ProductType(), $product);
$category = new Category();
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
$category->getProduct($this);
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$em->persist($product);
$em->flush();
return $this->redirectToRoute('products_admin');
}
return $this->render('Product/productAdd.html.twig', array(
'form' => $form->createView(),
));
}

Answer 1

I bet that you don't need OneToOne but OneToMany relation for Product vs Category. Because i think that one category can have multiple products but a product can only have one category.
Another approach is even to make a ManyToMany relation. In that case each category can have multiple products, but each product can be in multiple categories too.
OneToOne is not often used, only in special circumstances.

Answer 2

I think you dont need the collection-type too in your case. You could change this for the entity type. Just make the entities ManyToOne as i explained.
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* Product
*
* #ORM\Table()
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class Product
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="description", type="string", length=64)
*/
private $description;
/**
* #var float
*
* #ORM\Column(name="price", type="float")
*/
private $price;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Category")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="category_id", referencedColumnName="id")
**/
private $category;
}
and category:
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* Category
*
* #ORM\Table()
* #ORM\Entity
*/
class Category
{
/**
* #var integer
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=64)
*/
private $name;
public function __toString() {
return $this->name;
}
}
and now use the console to run some commands:
app/console doctrine:generate:entities AppBundle
app/console doctrine:schema:update --force
app/console doctrine:generate:crud AppBundle:Product
app/console doctrine:generate:crud AppBundle:Category
choose YES if asked if you want to generate write Actions
Add a __toString() method to your Category entity:
public function __toString() {
return $this->name;
}
Now see your new controllers and routes and try them.
To see all your routes:
app/console router:debug
You must have this in your app/config/routing.yml:
app:
resource: "#AppBundle/Controller/"
type: annotation
At the end you will have:
- two new entities
- two new controllers
- two new form types
- eight new views
You can learn a lot from the created code and change everything as you wish.
Good luck

Answer 3

I know it's a old question, but :
/**
* #Route("admin/product/new", name="product_add")
* #Security("has_role('ROLE_ADMIN')")
*/
public function newAction(Request $request)
{
$product = new Product();
$form = $this->createForm(new ProductType(), $product);
$category = new Category();
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
#################################
##$category->getProduct($this);##
#################################
$category->setProduct($this);
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$em->persist($product);
$em->flush();
return $this->redirectToRoute('products_admin');
}
return $this->render('Product/productAdd.html.twig', array(
'form' => $form->createView(),
));
}
You call getProduct($this) instead of setProduct($this)