Symfony 3 - Add an array entities to the database from entity? - php

Question

I would like to add a field of type array to my database, and be able to use it, as does FOSUserBundle with the roles.
The goal is to add a table of packages to my User entity.
I don't want a join table.
I reproduced the same schema as for the roles and I added all this to my User entity
Some code of my User.php entity :
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Encoder\UserPasswordEncoderInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\UserInterface;
use FOS\UserBundle\Model\User as BaseUser;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection;
/**
* #var array
*
* #ORM\Column(name="packages", type="array", length=255)
*/
private $packages;
public function addPackage($package)
{
if (!in_array($package, $this->packages, true)) {
$this->packages[] = $package;
}
}
/**
* {#inheritdoc}
*
* #return array
*/
public function getPackages()
{
return $this->packages;
}
/**
* {#inheritdoc}
*/
public function setPackages(array $packages)
{
$this->packages = array();
foreach ($packages as $package) {
$this->addPackage($package);
}
return $this;
}
/**
* {#inheritdoc}
*/
public function removePackage($package)
{
if (false !== $key = array_search(strtoupper($package), $this->packages, true)) {
unset($this->packages[$key]);
$this->packages = array_values($this->packages);
}
return $this;
}
/**
* Constructor
*/
public function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
$this->packages = array();
}
In my database, the packages field is present, and seems to be like the roles field. But when I connect with my user on the site, I have this error:
Could not convert database value "" to Doctrine Type array
Someone would know what's wrong with the code?
My Database screenshot :
Database structure
Database view

Answer 1

If you don't want to set type="string" in your $packages, you can keep the "array" and do this sql command, and add nullable=true for the other values that you already have in your BD: Like this, the empty values will be converted to null.
#ORM\Column(type="array", nullable=true)
and do sql command:
ALTER TABLE my_table ADD my_new_column LONGTEXT DEFAULT NULL COMMENT '(DC2Type:array)'
or by symfony console:
php bin/console doctrine:query:sql "UPDATE <<your_table_name>> SET <<field_name>> = NULL WHERE <<field_name>>=''"