Question

ive been trying to figure this out for 2 hours now and i cant seem to understand what went wrong.

I am using Symfony2 and FOSUserBundle.

I created a User entity which extends FOSUserBundle’s BaseUser class. Within this User entity, i have 3 variables, id, my_mentors and my_mentees. More details are below:

class User extends BaseUser
{
/**
 * @ORM\Id
 * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
 * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
 */
protected $id;                

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="User", mappedBy="my_mentees")
 */
protected $my_mentors;

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="User", inversedBy="my_mentors")
 * @ORM\JoinTable(name="mentor_and_mentee_relationship",
 *      joinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="user_id", referencedColumnName="id")},
 *      inverseJoinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="mentors_or_mentees_user_id", referencedColumnName="id")}
 *      )
 */
protected $my_mentees;

public function __construct()
{
    parent::__construct();
    $this->my_mentors = new ArrayCollection();
    $this->my_mentees = new ArrayCollection();
}

public function __toString()
{
    return $this->getUsername();
}

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

/**
 * Add my_mentors
 *
 * @param Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentors
 */
public function addUser(\Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentors)
{
    $this->my_mentors[] = $myMentors;
}

/**
 * Get my_mentors
 *
 * @return Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection 
 */
public function getMyMentors()
{
    return $this->my_mentors;
}

/**
 * Get my_mentees
 *
 * @return Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection 
 */
public function getMyMentees()
{
    return $this->my_mentees;
}
}

I created the self reference because a Mentee(which is a User) will subscribe to a Mentor(which is also a User). I tried to do this using the following function:

public function subscribeAction($menteeID, $mentorID)
{                
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()
               ->getEntityManager();

    $mentor = $em->getRepository('TestBundle:User')
                ->find($mentorID);
    $mentee = $em->getRepository('TestBundle:User')
                ->find($menteeID);                

    $currentMentors = $mentee->getMyMentors();
    if ($currentMentors->contains($mentor))
        $this->get('session')->setFlash('subscribe-notice', 'You have already signed up to this mentor!');
    else
    {
        $mentee->setIsMentor(false);
        $mentee->addUser($mentor);
        $mentor->addUser($mentee);
        $em->persist($mentee);
        $em->persist($mentor);
        $em->flush();            
        $this->get('session')->setFlash('subscribe-notice', 'Subscription succesful!');
    }

    return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('TestBundle_testpage', array('id' => $mentor->getMentorProfile()->getId()) ));
}

The problem here is that when i check the database, it does not persist the data. The mentor-mentee relationship information is not stored in the table “mentor_and_mentee_relationship” as declared by the annotation.

I persisted both $mentor and $mentee in an attempt to get it to work, but apparently it doesnt.

Could my ORM annotation be declared wrongly?

Answer 1

You are using the same function (addUser) to add a mentor and to add a mentee. This is wrong. First you need two different setters in your entity (I changed the name of addUser to make it clear)

/**
 * Add my_mentors
 *
 * @param Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentors
 */
public function addMentor(\Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentors)
{
    $this->my_mentors[] = $myMentors;
}

/**
 * Add my_mentees
 *
 * @param Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentees
 */
public function addMentee(\Fitness\FitBundle\Entity\User $myMentees)
{
    $this->my_mentees[] = $myMentees;
}

Then in your controller do:

        $mentee->addMentor($mentor);
        $mentor->addMentee($mentee);