Generate Doctrine entity with a "nested" array collection

Question

I'm building a computer configurator and got four entities.

Customer(not relevant)
Computer(id, customer, serial, date, [components])
ArticleGroup(id, name)
Article(id, name, price, articleGroup, active)

The attribute [components] of the Computer entity should contain an array like this:

    $components = array(
  'CPU' => array(
    'name' => 'Intel Core i7',
    'count' => 1,
    'price' => 275),
  'Mainboard' => array(
    'name' => 'Gigabyte H97-D3H',
    'count' => 1,
    'price' => 75),
  'RAM' => array(
    'name' => '4GB DDRIII Kingston Value Ram',
    'count' => 4,
    'price' => 28),
  'SSD' => array(
    'name' => '512GB Samsung 850 Pro',
    'count' => 1,
    'price' => 400)
  );

The array key price maybe differs from the price of the article entity.(Because of daily prices for hardware or because i think that this customer gets the cpu for less money)

Now the question I don't know how to create this components array collection.

This is my Computer entity:

    <?php

namespace ctcrm\ConfiguratorBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

/**
 * Computer
 *
 * @ORM\Table()
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class Computer
{
  /**
   * @var integer
   *
   * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
   * @ORM\Id
   * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
   */
  private $id;

  /**
   * @var string
   * @Assert\NotBlank()
   * @Assert\Length(
   *      min = 12,
   *      max = 12,
   *      minMessage = "no valid serial!",
   *      maxMessage = "no valid serial!"
   * )
   * @ORM\Column(name="serial", type="string", length=12)
   */
  private $serial;

  /**
   * @var \DateTime
   * @Assert\NotBlank()
   * @ORM\Column(name="date", type="date")
   */
  private $date;

  /**
   * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Customer")
   * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="customer_id", referencedColumnName="id")
   * @Assert\NotBlank()
   **/
  private $customer;

  /**
   * Get id
   *
   * @return integer
   */
  public function getId()
  {
    return $this->id;
  }

  /**
   * Set serial
   *
   * @param string $serial
   * @return Computer
   */
  public function setSerial($serial)
  {
    $this->serial = $serial;

    return $this;
  }

  /**
   * Get serial
   *
   * @return string
   */
  public function getSerial()
  {
    return $this->serial;
  }

  /**
   * Set date
   *
   * @param \DateTime $date
   * @return Computer
   */
  public function setDate($date)
  {
    $this->date = $date;

    return $this;
  }

  /**
   * Get date
   *
   * @return \DateTime
   */
  public function getDate()
  {
    return $this->date;
  }

  /**
   * @return mixed
   */
  public function getCustomer()
  {
    return $this->customer;
  }

  /**
   * @param mixed $customer
   */
  public function setCustomer($customer)
  {
    $this->customer = $customer;
  }


}

Kal Zekdor · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-13 01:18:33Z

4

There is no (reliable) means of having an array in an SQL table. You would need to perform serialization on the data, which is not a recommended practice if you can avoid it.

What you probably want to do is create a Component Entity, with a many-to-many relationship to Computers, using a Join table.

See the Doctrine documentation: http://doctrine-orm.readthedocs.org/en/latest/reference/association-mapping.html#many-to-many-unidirectional

You'll want the directionality to be from Computers to Components, as a Computer contains a number of Components, but not the inverse. A many-to-one relationship would require duplicate entries for Components (referencing physical objects instead of a classification using a model number), while a many-to-many relationship allows you to populate your components list, and reference them in the computer.

edited Jun 13, 2015 at 1:18

answered Jun 13, 2015 at 1:13

Kal Zekdor

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