Question

i have 2 tables members and comments.. i successfully joing them to. so now, i can get an collection of all entries for any user. but i need to create anothewr table called ‘followers’ , where each user can follow each. therefore, now, i want to be able to get all comments from 1 user also the comments for the users he is following too. but dont know what way to approach to complete this relationship with this new table.

users entity:

namespace Entities\Members;

/**
 * @Entity(repositoryClass="\Entities\Member\MembersRepository")
 * @Table(name="Members")
 * @HasLifecycleCallbacks
 */
class Members extends \Entities\AbstractEntity
{
    /**
     * @Id @Column(name="id", type="bigint",length=15)
     * @GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    protected $id;
    /** @Column(name="userid", type="bigint", length=26, nullable=true) */
    protected $userid;
    /** @Column(name="fname", type="string", length=255,nullable=true) */
    protected $fname;
    /** @OneToMany(targetEntity="\Entities\Users\Wall", mappedBy="entry", cascade={"persist"}) */
    protected $commententries;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->commententries = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
    }
}

comments entity:

 namespace Entities\Members;

/**
 * @Entity(repositoryClass="\Entities\Member\CommentsRepository")
 * @Table(name="comments")
 * @HasLifecycleCallbacks
 */
class Comments extends \Entities\AbstractEntity
{
    /**
     * @Id @Column(name="id", type="bigint",length=15)
     * @GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    protected $id;
    /** @Column(name="userid", type="bigint", length=26, nullable=true) */

    /**
     * @ManyToOne(targetEntity="\Entities\Member\Member", cascade={"persist"})
     * @JoinColumn(name="userid", referencedColumnName="id")
     */
    protected $entry;

}

this works, i can get all comments from users via:

$this->repo->findByUserid(3);  (userid = 3)

however, how can i add a ‘following’ table (just like twitter). where one can follow other, and therefore, i would be able to not only, see user id-3 comments but other comments from other user he is following?

table called: followers:

  namespace Entities\Members;

/**
 * @Entity(repositoryClass="\Entities\Member\FollowersRepository")
 * @Table(name="followers")
 * @HasLifecycleCallbacks
 */
class Followers extends \Entities\AbstractEntity
{
    /**
     * @Id @Column(name="id", type="bigint",length=15)
     * @GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    protected $id;
    /** @Column(name="userid", type="bigint", length=26, nullable=true) */

    protected ???;

    /**
     * @Many  ???
     * @JoinColumn(   ???
     */
    protected $???;

}

Answer 1

Probably the best way to do this is to create a relationship from Followers to Members.

Then create a EntityRepository for the Comments Entity in which you’ll create a function like: getCommentsByUserIdIncludingFollowers($userId) in which you create a DQL query that returns the correct information/comments you need.

This would be the way I’d suggest.