Fields not persisting using MappedSuperclass in Symfony 2/Doctrine 2? - symfony

Question

A MappedSuperclass:
/** #ORM\MappedSuperclass */
abstract class AbstractMessage
{
/** #ORM\Column(type="text", nullable=true) */
protected $content;
}
And a child subclass, redefining $content to add some custom validation asserts:
/** #ORM\Entity */
class InternalMessage extends AbstractMessage
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #Assert\NotBlank(message="Internal message title is required.")
*/
protected $content;
/** #return integer */
public function getId() { return $this->id; }
/**
* #param string $content
* #return InternalMessage
*/
public function setContent($content)
{
$this->content = $content;
return $this;
}
/** #return string */
public function getContent() { return $this->content; }
}
When $content override parent
As in my example, $content is not persisted! null field...
Removing $content from the child
If i remove $content from InternalMessage field is persisted, while validation does not work anymore.
Is this a bug or something? I opened an issue but don't know if it's the right place (i'm new to how github works).
Too bad i realized that Doctrine inheritance is buggy (starting from the generator itself...).

Answer 1

Afaik, it can't be done, Doctrine2 inheritance strategy doesn't allow you to re-define properties from MappedSuperClass.
This should be limitation due the Reflection system.
Your best bet is to extract your validation configuration and move it to a standalone XML or YML file.
You may also want to do it for your ORM (but you'll need to do it for all entities in your Bundle) as it will allow you more flexibility.