Symfony does not find a recently persisted entity - Doctrine/Symfony - php

Question

I am trying to do a simple operation: create 2 entries; on each creation, first check if the entity exists, create it, if it does not, and then do the adjustment. In some cases (on first such operation) we need to create the entity in the first entry and work with it in the second. Unfortunately, this does not happen and we end up with two entries that are useless. After this initial issue, everything works as expected (i.e. on next iteration the entity is properly found).
Here is the code for the entries:
// Create first entry
$debitCode = 'bank';
$creditCode = 'equity';
// Create entry
$accountEntry = new AccountEntry();
$accountEntry->setAmount($amount);
$debitAccount = $unit->getAccountByType($debitCode);
if (!$debitAccount) {
// Create debit account
$debitAccountType = $em->getRepository('App:AccountType')->findOneBy(['code' => $debitCode]);
$debitAccount = new Account();
$debitAccount->setType($debitAccountType);
$em->persist($debitAccount);
}
$debitAccount->debit($amount);
$accountEntry->setDebitAccount($debitAccount);
$creditAccount = $unit->getAccountByType($creditCode);
if (!$creditAccount) {
// Create credit account
$creditAccountType = $em->getRepository('App:AccountType')->findOneBy(['code' => $creditCode]);
$creditAccount = new Account();
$creditAccount->setType($creditAccountType);
$em->persist($creditAccount);
}
$creditAccount->credit($amount);
$accountEntry->setCreditAccount($creditAccount);
$em->persist($accountEntry);
$em->flush();
// Create second entry
$debitCode2 = 'accountsPayable';
$creditCode2 = 'bank';
$accountEntry2 = new AccountEntry();
$accountEntry2->setAmount($amount);
$debitAccount = $unit->getAccountByType($debitCode2);
if (!$debitAccount) {
// Create debit account
$debitAccountType = $em->getRepository('App:AccountType')->findOneBy(['code' => $debitCode2]);
$debitAccount = new Account();
$debitAccount->setUnit($unit);
$debitAccount->setType($debitAccountType);
$em->persist($debitAccount);
}
$debitAccount->debit($amount);
$accountEntry2->setDebitAccount($debitAccount);
$creditAccount = $unit->getAccountByType($creditCode2);
if (!$creditAccount) {
// Create credit account
$creditAccountType = $em->getRepository('App:AccountType')->findOneBy(['code' => $creditCode2]);
$creditAccount = new Account();
$creditAccount->setUnit($unit);
$creditAccount->setType($creditAccountType);
$em->persist($creditAccount);
}
$creditAccount->credit($amount);
$accountEntry2->setCreditAccount($creditAccount);
$em->persist($accountEntry2);
$em->flush;
And here is the getAccountByType function:
/**
* Get Account by type of account.
*/
public function getAccountByType($code)
{
$filter = function ($account) use ($code) {
if ($account->getType()->getCode() == $code) {
return $account;
}
};
$accounts = $this->accounts->filter($filter)->getValues();
return isset($accounts[0]) ? $accounts[0] : null;
}

Answer 1

And, of course, 30 minutes after I posted the question, I found the answer myself (despite having been banging my head against the wall for a couple of days before posting).
Basically, we need to refresh the $unit entity after persisting/flushing the initial entry:
$em->refresh($unit);
Otherwise, the getAccountByType method apparently does not take into account the changes. So, it appears that entity methods do not take into account flushed changes to the database, if the entity is not refreshed. Probably basic stuff, but I did not know that. I hope this will save someone lots of trouble.