Map array to entity in Symfony2/Doctrine2 - symfony

Question

I'm using the DoctrineFixtures bundle to create example entities during development. In my ORM fixtures load() method, I define the data as associative arrays and create the entity object in a loop.
<?php
// ...
public function load($manager) {
$roleDefs = array(
'role-1' => array(
'role' => 'administrator'
),
'role-2' => array(
'role' => 'user'
),
);
foreach($roleDefs as $key => $roleDef) {
$role = new Role();
$role->setRole($roleDef['role']);
$manager->persist($role);
$this->addReference($key, $role);
}
$manager->flush();
}
I always use the same array schema. Every array element uses the property name (in underscore notation) of the entity as index. If the entity structure becomes more complex, there are a lot of $entity->setMyProperty($def['my_property']); lines.
I think the problem of mapping propertynames to setter methods is a very common problem in Symfony and Doctrine as this type of mapping is found in many situations (e.g. mapping forms to entities).
Now I'm wondering if there is a built-in method that can be used for mapping. It would be nice to have a solution like
foreach($defs as $key => $def) {
$entity = $magicMapper->getEntity('MyBundle:MyEntity', $def);
// ...
}
Has someone an idea how this can be achieved?
Thanks a lot,
Hacksteak

Answer 1

I sometimes use loops when creating fixtures. I'm not sure if this solution fits your requirements, but I find that the most flexible way to build fixtures and quickly add new properties over time if you need is to do the following... Assuming the creation of a bunch of blog posts:
// an array of blog post fixture values
$posts = array(
array(
'title' => 'Foo',
'text' => 'lorem'
'date' => new \DateTime('2011-12-01'),
),
array(
'title' => 'Bar',
'text' => 'lorem'
'date' => new \DateTime('2011-12-02'),
),
// more data...
);
// loop over the posts
foreach ($posts as $post) {
// new entity
$post = new Post();
// now loop over the properties of each post array...
foreach ($post as $property => $value) {
// create a setter
$method = sprintf('set%s', ucwords($property)); // or you can cheat and omit ucwords() because PHP method calls are case insensitive
// use the method as a variable variable to set your value
$post->$method($value);
}
// persist the entity
$em->persist($post);
}
This way you can add more properties by just adding the new values to your array.