Doctrine arrayCollections and relationship - symfony

Question

I'm quite new with Doctrine, so I hope someone can help me or redirect me to the good documentation page.
I'm building an app with two entity (I reduce for explanations) :
- Tender
- File
For each tender, we can have one or more files. So I made the following objects.
Tender:
<?php
namespace TenderBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="tender")
*/
class Tender
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $tender_id;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="array")
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="File", inversedBy="tenders")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="tender_files", referencedColumnName="file_id")
*/
private $tender_files;
}
File:
<?php
namespace TenderBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\File\UploadedFile;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="file")
*/
class File
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $file_id;
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="Tender", mappedBy="tender_files", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
*/
private $file_tender;
}
First question: is it the right way to do this?
(of course, i've created the methods to get and set attributes, but they're basic).
When I persist each of my File object i'm trying to add then to my Tender instance. But to do this, I need to make $tender_files public and do this:
$tender->tender_files[]
This is not a viable solution for me because I need all my fields are private and I want to recover my object when I try to call this:
$this->getDoctrine()->getManager()->getRepository('TenderBundle:Tender')->find($id)->getTenderFiles()->getFileName();
So, I'm explaining and asking to find the right way to do what I want. I hope what i need is clear and i'm here to answers questions or show more code if needed.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Like Richard has mentioned, you're missing getters and setters which are declared to be public. They'll have access to your private variables. The quick way to do this with symfony:
php app/console doctrine:generate:entities
It'll generate something like this:
public function addTenderFile(\TenderBundle\Entity\File $file)
{
$this->tender_files[] = $file;
return $this;
}
/**
* Remove
*/
public function removeTenderFile(\TenderBundle\Entity\File $file)
{
$this->tender_files->removeElement($file);
}
/**
* Get
*/
public function getTenderFiles()
{
return $this->tender_files;
}
It's good practice if you're a beginner to see how your code lines up with the auto generator. Once you understand what's going on, just let the generator do the grunt work.

Answer 2

You should have a setter and getter in your File entity similar to this:
public function setTender(\Your\Namespace\Tender $tender)
{
$this->tender = $tender;
return $this;
}
public function setTender()
{
return $this->tender;
}
So when you instance (or create) File, you can go like so:
$file = new File(); // or file fetched from DB, etc.
// here set $file properties or whatever
$tender->setFile($file);
$entityManager->persist($tender);
$entityManager->flush();
Then your tender will be properly associated with your file.
Similarly from the File end, you should be able to do:
$file->addTender($tender);
$entityManager->persist($file);
$entityManager->flush();
And your tender will be added to your File->tenders collection.
For more information the documentation is very useful and has more or less everything you need to get started.
Also, save yourself manually creating getters and setters by using generate:doctrine:entity

Answer 3

This is incorrect:
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="array")
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="File", inversedBy="tenders")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="tender_files", referencedColumnName="file_id")
*/
private $tender_files;
You can't persist an array to your database. A database row is one entity and it's corresponding attributes. If a tender can have many files, then this relationship should be:
* #ORM\OneToMany
Likewise for the File entity. If many files can have one Tender then it's relationship should be:
* #ORM\ManyToOne
For relationship mapping using Doctrine, it's helpful to read left-to-right with the entity YOU'RE CURRENTLY IN being on the left, and the entity you're setting as a variable being on the right.
If you're in Tender reading left-to-right Tender may have "OneToMany" files. And File(s) may have ManyToOne Tender. Doctrine Association Mapping