Symfony find user by role (JSON array Doctrine property) - php

Question

I am doing a small project where I have an entity with a roles property which consists of an array.
What I am trying to do is, in some controller, find an existing entity which has a specific role inside of the roles array.
I am trying to use the findOneBy() method, but I can't seem to make it work, it always returns null even though entities with the specific role I'm trying to find exist.
Here is my entity and its properties:
/**
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass=SalarieRepository::class)
*/
class Salarie
{
/**
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue
* #ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
*/
private $nom;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
*/
private $prenom;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
*/
private $email;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=255, nullable=true)
*/
private $telephone;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
*/
private $service;
/**
* #ORM\Column(type="json")
*/
private $roles = [];
// Getters & setters
}
And here is an example of something I tried with findOneBy() inside a controller, that returns null:
$rolecheck = $this->salarieRepository->findOneBy(["roles" => ["ROLE_RESPONSABLE_RH"]]);
When I try with any other property of the entity which isn't an array it works well, if I do something like this:
$rolecheck = $this->salarieRepository->findOneBy(["nom" => "test"]);
dd($rolecheck);
It will show the right entity :
SalarieController.php on line 47:
App\Entity\Salarie {#1501 ▼
-id: 6
-nom: "test"
-prenom: "test"
-email: "test#test.test"
-telephone: null
-service: "Graphisme"
-roles: array:3 [▼
0 => "ROLE_RESPONSABLE_RH"
1 => "ROLE_RESPONSABLE_SERVICE"
2 => "ROLE_SALARIE"
]
}
Where we can also see it does have the roles array with the role I'm trying to find inside it.
Any clues on how I could try to find one entity which has the specific role "ROLE_RESPONSABLE_RH"?

Answer 1

Your $roles property is of type json, which means it is stored as this in your database:
["ROLE_RESPONSABLE_RH", "ROLE_RESPONSABLE_SERVICE", "ROLE_SALARIE"]
You need to ask Doctrine if the JSON array contains the role, but you can't do that with the findOneBy() method.
When you hit the ORM limitations you can use a Native Query with ResultSetMapping. It allows you to write a pure SQL query using specific features of your DBMS but still get entity objects.
Create this method in your SalarieRepository class:
public function findByRole(string $role): array
{
// The ResultSetMapping maps the SQL result to entities
$rsm = $this->createResultSetMappingBuilder('s');
$rawQuery = sprintf(
'SELECT %s
FROM salarie s
WHERE /* your WHERE clause depending on the DBMS */',
$rsm->generateSelectClause()
);
$query = $this->getEntityManager()->createNativeQuery($rawQuery, $rsm);
$query->setParameter('role', $role);
return $query->getResult();
}
Then you need to replace the comment I put in the WHERE clause depending on the DBMS:
MariaDB - JSON_SEARCH():
SELECT %s
FROM salarie s
WHERE JSON_SEARCH(s.roles, 'one', :role) IS NOT NULL
MySQL - JSON_CONTAINS():
SELECT %s
FROM salarie s
WHERE JSON_CONTAINS(s.roles, :role, '$')
Warning: you must enclose the role parameter with double quotes:
$query->setParameter('role', sprintf('"%s"', $role));
PostgreSQL - jsonb escaped "?" operator:
SELECT %s
FROM salarie s
WHERE s.roles::jsonb ?? :role
Warning: will require PHP 7.4+. See the RFC

Answer 2

CAST JSON to TEXT
class JSONText extends FunctionNode
{
private $expr1;
public function getSql(SqlWalker $sqlWalker)
{
return sprintf(
"CAST(%s AS TEXT)",
$this->expr1->dispatch($sqlWalker)
);
}
public function parse(Parser $parser)
{
$parser->match(Lexer::T_IDENTIFIER);
$parser->match(Lexer::T_OPEN_PARENTHESIS);
$this->expr1 = $parser->StringPrimary();
$parser->match(Lexer::T_CLOSE_PARENTHESIS);
}
}
Add to your Doctrine DQL:
dql:
string_functions:
JSON_TEXT: YOUR_NAMESPACE\JSONText
Use your cast function
$qb->andWhere("JSON_TEXT(d.topics) LIKE '%$role%'")