symfony2 doctrine array of entities possible?

Question

I am trying to work out a good way of storing an array of objects in my sym2 entity. The objects in the array would look like this:

{
    "id"        :   1,
    "top"       :   200,
    "left"      :   150,
    "width"     :   500,
    "height"    :   600
}

Should I just go for the array property like this?

/**
 * @var array $modules
 * 
 * @ORM\Column(name="modules", type="array", nullable=true)
 */
private $modules;
/*
{
    "id"        :   1,
    "left"      :   150,
    "top"       :   200,
    "width"     :   500,
    "height"    :   600
}
*/

Or is there a smoother way, could I create the objects contained in this array as a separate entity and store instead an array of those entities here in this entity?

I do not want to save these to database separately, I would like to keep them inside this main entity. I get that I could set up a many to many relationship but I don't want to, it is a bit overkill for what I am trying to accomplish.

----- UPDATE ------- Thanks to Guillaume Verbal, here's what I will do, I assume this will work fine as well then since JSON can take nested objects infinitely?

    $person[0] = new Acme\Person();
$person->setName('foo');
$person->setAge(99);

$person[1] = new Acme\Person();
$person->setName('foo');
$person->setAge(99);

$jsonContent = $serializer->serialize($person, 'json');

// $jsonContent contains {"name":"foo","age":99}

Oh I only used json above to describe the object, it will most likely come in the form of a php array when I want to persist the entity. — Matt Welander
– Matt Welander, Commented Nov 12, 2013 at 13:19
ok. Is there an advantage in using this instead of just persisting it with a normal PHP array for the contents? — Matt Welander
– Matt Welander, Commented Nov 12, 2013 at 13:35
JSON has better better compatibility between languages. It is considered as best-practice more than serialize() method used for PHP array. But do as you wish. — Ladislav M
– Ladislav M, Commented Nov 12, 2013 at 13:44

William Vbl · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-12 13:49:45Z

4

You can use the Symfony 2 Serializer Component: http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/serializer.html

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Serializer;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Encoder\XmlEncoder;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Encoder\JsonEncoder;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\GetSetMethodNormalizer;

$encoders = array(new XmlEncoder(), new JsonEncoder());
$normalizers = array(new GetSetMethodNormalizer());

$serializer = new Serializer($normalizers, $encoders);

$person = new Acme\Person();
$person->setName('foo');
$person->setAge(99);

$jsonContent = $serializer->serialize($person, 'json');

// $jsonContent contains {"name":"foo","age":99}

answered Nov 12, 2013 at 13:49

William Vbl

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2 Comments

Matt Welander Over a year ago

Oh, I see.. would this work as well? $person[0] = new Acme\Person(); $person->setName('foo'); $person->setAge(99); $person[1] = new Acme\Person(); $person->setName('foo'); $person->setAge(99); $jsonContent = $serializer->serialize($person, 'json'); // $jsonContent contains {"name":"foo","age":99}

Matt Welander Over a year ago

formatting is a bit messy in the comment field ... I added the same to original question above

Thomas C. · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-12 12:56:54Z

1

You can use JSON type for this

http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/serializer.html

answered Nov 12, 2013 at 12:56

Thomas C.

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