How to generate entities from database view with doctrine and symfony2 - symfony

Question

I am trying to generate entities from database using standard console commands as described in Symfony2 documentation here: http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/doctrine/reverse_engineering.html.
php app/console doctrine:mapping:convert --from-database --force yml "src/My/HomeBundle/Resources/config/doctrine/metadata/orm"
php app/console doctrine:mapping:import MyHomeBundle yml
php app/console doctrine:generate:entities MyHomeBundle
After this, all tables are generated correctly. The problem is that this won't generate entities for database views. When I add yml files myself into src/My/HomeBundle/Resources/config/doctrine/metadata/orm for example:
UserInGroup:
type: entity
table: user_in_group_view
fields:
id:
id: true
type: integer
unsigned: false
nullable: false
generator:
strategy: IDENTITY
userId:
type: integer
unsigned: false
nullable: false
column: user_id
userGroupId:
type: integer
unsigned: false
nullable: false
column: user_group_id
lifecycleCallbacks: { }
I get this exception when running php app/console doctrine:generate:entities MyHomeBundle:
Notice: Undefined index: My\HomeBundle\Entity\UserInGroup in C:\Users\ThisIsMe\Projects\SymfonyTestProject\vendor\doctrine\lib\Doctrine\ORM\Mapping\Driver\AbstractFileDriver.php line 121
Similar question was posted here: How to set up entity (doctrine) for database view in Symfony 2
I know I can create Entity class, but I was hoping that I could get this generated so if I change my view, I could just regenerate entity classes. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Now you create your orm files only. You need to follow 2 more steps. I will give you the complete steps from begining.
Before doing this delete all yml files in your orm directory that you had created early.
I hope MyHomeBundle is your bundle name
1).php app/console doctrine:mapping:convert yml ./src/My/HomeBundle/Resources/config/doctrine --from-database --force
Symfony2 generate entity from Database
2).php app/console doctrine:mapping:import MyHomeBundle yml
3).php app/console doctrine:generate:entities MyHomeBundle
Hope this helps you.

Answer 2

Got the same issue, i use xml instead of yml but must be the same.
Check in your orm entity if the name include the correct route, exemple:
<entity name="Myapp\MyrBundle\Entity\MyEntity" table="myentity">
Because when i generate my orm from database the name was like that:
<entity name="MyEntity" table="myentity">
So doctrine didn't understand the right path.
Hope i'm clear and this will help you!

Answer 3

I know it's an old question but I found the trick (Symfony 6) to generate entities from SQL view (I use a SQL server database).
So I modified two methods of the SQLServerPlatform.php file of the doctrine bundle.
public function getListTablesSQL()
{
// "sysdiagrams" table must be ignored as it's internal SQL Server table for Database Diagrams
// Category 2 must be ignored as it is "MS SQL Server 'pseudo-system' object[s]" for replication
return 'SELECT name, SCHEMA_NAME (uid) AS schema_name FROM sysobjects'
. " WHERE type = 'V' AND name != 'sysdiagrams' AND category != 2 ORDER BY name";
}
I changed the where condition parameter 'U' by 'V' for view.
Same operation for the method getListTableColumnsSQL(), we change here the 'U' parameter of the where condition by 'V'.
public function getListTableColumnsSQL($table, $database = null)
{
return "SELECT col.name,
type.name AS type,
col.max_length AS length,
~col.is_nullable AS notnull,
def.definition AS [default],
col.scale,
col.precision,
col.is_identity AS autoincrement,
col.collation_name AS collation,
CAST(prop.value AS NVARCHAR(MAX)) AS comment -- CAST avoids driver error for sql_variant type
FROM sys.columns AS col
JOIN sys.types AS type
ON col.user_type_id = type.user_type_id
JOIN sys.objects AS obj
ON col.object_id = obj.object_id
JOIN sys.schemas AS scm
ON obj.schema_id = scm.schema_id
LEFT JOIN sys.default_constraints def
ON col.default_object_id = def.object_id
AND col.object_id = def.parent_object_id
LEFT JOIN sys.extended_properties AS prop
ON obj.object_id = prop.major_id
AND col.column_id = prop.minor_id
AND prop.name = 'MS_Description'
WHERE obj.type = 'V'
AND " . $this->getTableWhereClause($table, 'scm.name', 'obj.name');
}
Maybe this will help someone.

Answer 4

As you can see here:
http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/doctrine/reverse_engineering.html
the reverse engineering process from db to entity is not fully implemented yet:
"As the Doctrine tools documentation says, reverse engineering is a one-time process to get started on a project. Doctrine is able to convert approximately 70-80% of the necessary mapping information based on fields, indexes and foreign key constraints. Doctrine can't discover inverse associations, inheritance types, entities with foreign keys as primary keys or semantical operations on associations such as cascade or lifecycle events. Some additional work on the generated entities will be necessary afterwards to design each to fit your domain model specificities."