How do I connect multiple relationships in symfony2 with doctrine? - symfony

Question

I am trying to create a symfony2 application. The main idea behind the project is that there is an event which many guests are invited to and they are categorized. I have created a relational model for all the entities.
There are 4 tables:
Guests - who is invited
Category - what category/categories he belongs to ?
Event - the event which they are invited to
Guest_Event (attendance)
I have concluded to the following schemas:
xxxxBundle\Entity\Guest:
type: entity
table: guest
id:
id:
type: integer
generator: { strategy: AUTO }
fields:
name:
type: string
length: 100
nullable: false
surname:
type: string
length: 100
nullable: false
email:
type: string
length: 255
nullable: true
address:
type: string
length: 255
nullable: true
phone:
type: string
length: 10
description:
type: text
created_at:
type: datetime
updated_at:
type: datetime
nullable: true
token:
type: string
length: 255
unique: true
is_activated:
type: boolean
nullable: true
manyToOne:
category:
targetEntity: Category
inversedBy: guest
joinColumn:
name: category_id
referencedColumnName: id
lifecycleCallbacks:
prePersist: [ setCreatedAtValue ]
preUpdate: [ setUpdatedAtValue ]
Category
xxxxBundle\Entity\Category:
type: entity
table: category
id:
id:
type: integer
generator: { strategy: AUTO }
fields:
name:
type: string
length: 255
unique: true
oneToMany:
guests:
targetEntity: Guest
mappedBy: category
attend:
targetEntity: Attendance
mappedBy: category
Event
xxxxxBundle\Entity\Event:
type: entity
table: event
id:
id:
type: integer
generator: { strategy: AUTO }
fields:
name:
type: string
length: 100
nullable: false
location:
type: string
length: 255
nullable: true
scheduled_at:
type: datetime
manyToMany:
category:
targetEntity: guest
inversedBy: event
joinColumn:
name: event_id
referencedColumnName: id
A guest might belong to multiple categories (manyToOne)
A category will have many guests (manyToOne)
A guest might attend many events (manyToOne)
An event might have many attendants (manyToMany?)
the attendance table (guest_event) should be a join table ?
I am a little bit confused about ORM and doctrine coding. Creating the tables via SQL code or phpmyadmin seems much easier to me but I want to go the hard way ! The documentation seems confusing because each tutorial suggests different things and the doctrine ORM section in the symfony2 book doesn't have a complete example but pieces of code..
How can I correct my tables to include all the specifications ?

Answer 1

My two cents:
A guest might belong to multiple categories
So many guests can belong to many categories, so it's many to many guest side. Assuming the owning side is Guest:
xxxxBundle\Entity\Guest:
manyToMany:
categories:
targetEntity: Category
inversedBy: guests
joinTable:
name: guests_categories
A category will have many guests (manyToOne)
If category will have many guests, why is's many to one? Many categories can be assigned to many guest:
xxxxBundle\Entity\Category:
manyToMany:
guests:
targetEntity: Guest
mappedBy: categories
If i understand you correctly, a categoy may exist even without a guest, and vice-versa a guest may exist even without a category.
And for guest/events relation, i'll go again for many to many / many to many. Take a look at here and ask yourself: one/many type of my entity can have one/many type of another entity?

Answer 2

I would strongly suggest you work your way through the official Symfony 2 documentation:
http://symfony.com/doc/master/book/doctrine.html
It takes you step by step through the process of initializing the database, making an entity, mapping it to the database and then using the entity.
You are trying to understand multiple concepts by reading assorted documentation. The fact that you seem to have yaml files in your entity directory indicates a basic lack of understanding.
Go through the tutorial first then add in your real entities. It's pretty straight forward once you get a few things working.

Answer 3

I changed my mind and used annotations as yaml seems confusing to me.
So far :
For the Guest entity
<?php
// xxxxBundle/Entity/Guest.php
namespace xxxxBundle\Entity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Email;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MinLength;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MaxLength;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="guest")
*/
class Guest
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Category", inversedBy="guests")
* #JoinTable(name="guests_categories")
*/
protected $categories;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Event", inversedBy="events")
* #JoinTable(name="guests_events")
*/
protected $events;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=30)
*/
protected $name;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=30)
*/
protected $surname;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=30)
*/
protected $email;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=100)
*/
protected $address;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=10)
*/
protected $phone;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=10)
*/
protected $mobile;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="text")
*/
protected $description;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="datetime")
*/
protected $created_at;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="datetime")
*/
protected $updated_at;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string")
*/
protected $token;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="boolean")
*/
protected $is_activated;
public function __construct() {
$this->categories = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
{
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new NotBlank());
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('surname', new NotBlank());
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('email', new Email(array(
'message' => 'I do not like invalid emails. Give me a real one!')));
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('phone', new MaxLength(10));
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('mobile', new MaxLength(10));
}
}
For the Category entity
<?php
// xxxxBundle/Entity/Category.php
namespace xxxxBundle\Entity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Email;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MinLength;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MaxLength;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="category")
*/
class Category
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Guest", mappedBy="categories")
*/
protected $guests;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=30)
*/
protected $name;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="text")
*/
protected $description;
public function __construct() {
$this->categories = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
{
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new NotBlank());
}
}
For the Event entity
<?php
// xxxxBundle/Entity/Event.php
namespace xxxxBundle\Entity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\NotBlank;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\Email;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MinLength;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints\MaxLength;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="event")
*/
class Event
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Guest", mappedBy="categories")
*/
protected $guests;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=30)
*/
protected $name;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=100)
*/
protected $location;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="text")
*/
protected $description;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="datetime")
*/
protected $scheduled_at;
public function __construct() {
$this->categories = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
{
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('name', new NotBlank());
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('location', new NotBlank());
}
}
I feel confused about the Attendance entity. The Attendance entity will have the following variables:
Guest_id
Event_id
Will_attend (yes/no/maybe)
Comment
Replied_at
Updated_at
I do not know which will be the primary key (or the primary keys?). The db table does not need to have a separate Id (or not?).
<?php
// xxxxBundle/Entity/Attendance.php
namespace xxxxBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Entity
* #ORM\Table(name="attendance")
*/
class Attendance
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Guest", mappedBy="categories")
*/
protected $guests;
/**
* #ManyToMany(targetEntity="Event", mappedBy="events")
*/
protected $events;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=3)
*/
protected $will_attend;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="text")
*/
protected $description;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="datetime")
*/
protected $replied_at;
public function __construct() {
$this->categories = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
}

Answer 4

The attendance entity requires a person to declare while he/she will attend an event or not. That means that it's a oneToOne relation because for every event must be ONE event - ONE person - ONE attendance reply.
The solution is to change the following code in the attendance entity :
/**
* #ORM\OneToOne(targetEntity="Guest")
*/
protected $guests;
/**
* #ORM\OneToOne(targetEntity="Event")
*/
protected $events;
Then run php app/console doctrine:generate:entities , php app/console doctrine:schema:update --force and the crud command If you generate them automatically. Now everything works fine.