Question

Is there a way to have something like this in doctrine:

class Entity {

    /**
     * @Column(name="related_entity_id")
     */
    private $relatedEntityId;

    /**
     * @ManyToOne(targetEntity="RelatedEntitiy")
     * @JoinColumn(name="related_entity_id", referencedColumnName="id")
     */ 
    private $relatedEntity;
}

What I want to do I do something like this:

call Entity::setRelatedEntityId($someId), and persist the entity,
and have the entity return the related entity by calling Entity::getRelatedEntity().

The related entity is selected from a table which will be strictly limited and it will never dynamically grow at runtime, so there is a finite number of related entity ids.

At the time of creating a new Entity, I’d like to set the related entity id, but without having to fetch the whole related entity from the database.

As far as I could test this, it does not work, because if I set the relatedEntityId but not the relatedEntity, Doctrine automatically sets the related_entity_id column to null, since basically no relationship has been established.

I’ve tried to do something like this also:

remove the relatedEntityId property, and use

Entity::setRelatedEntity(new RelatedEntity($relEntId))

the constructor of the RelatedEntity will set the id, but not other values.
I do not want to persist the RelatedEntity (it’s values are already set in the DB for the given $relEntId), but this time Doctrine signals an error at flush, because it has an unpersisted entity.

Basically, what I want to do is create a relationship without knowing anyhing but the Id of the related entity. If there is some other way this can be done, please share.

Thanks in advance

EDIT:

I’ve found a workaround. Since the RelatedEntities will be a limited set of immutable objects, I’ve done the following:

1. use the entityManager to find all RelatedEntities;
2. inject the list to the object that will be creating new Entities
3. when creating a new Entity, select one of the RelatedEntities from the list as its RelatedEntity

I’ll leave the question open for a day or two, just in case somebody comes up with something better.

Answer 1

Use the entity proxy:

Entity::setRelatedEntity($entityManager->getReference('RelatedEntity', $relEntId))