Symfony OneToMany updates instead of insert - php

Question

I am a beginner in Symfony.
I have a strange problem in my form.
I have 2 entities : Proposal_Lsi and Lsi_Beams. One proposal can have multiple beams, but a beam can only have one proposal. I figured I should use a OneToMany/ManyToOne relation, and that my owning side is the beam one, and inverse side is proposal.
I followed the official guide at https://symfony.com/doc/3.1/form/form_collections.html about Form Collections.
Everything renders just fine, I can submit a new proposal with multiple beams, and all is correctly stored in the database.
The problem occurs whenever I try to add new beams to my proposal : the systems overwrites (update query) existing beams (starting by the first one in the database) instead of adding new ones (insert query).
What am I missing ?
Here's some of my code, if that can help.
Proposal Class:
class Proposal_lsi{
/**
* #ORM\OneToOne(targetEntity="Emir2Bundle\Entity\Proposal", inversedBy="proposal_lsi")
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="proposal", referencedColumnName="id")
* #ORM\Id
*/
private $proposal;
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="Emir2Bundle\Entity\Lsi_beams", mappedBy="proposal_lsi")
*/
private $lsi_beams;
...
/**
* Add lsiBeam
*
* #param \Emir2Bundle\Entity\Lsi_beams $lsiBeam
* #return Proposal_lsi
*/
public function addLsiBeam(\Emir2Bundle\Entity\Lsi_beams $lsiBeam)
{
$lsiBeam->setProposalLsi($this);
$this->lsi_beams[] = $lsiBeam;
return $this;
}
}
Beams Class:
class Lsi_beams{
/**
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Emir2Bundle\Entity\Proposal_lsi", inversedBy="lsi_beams", cascade={"persist"})
* #ORM\JoinColumn(name="proposal_lsi", referencedColumnName="proposal", nullable=false)
*/
private $proposal_lsi;
...
}
And the form in the controller :
$form = $this->createFormBuilder($proposallsi)
->setAction($this->generateUrl('lsi_submission', array('id' => $id)))
->setMethod('POST')
->add('lsi_beams', CollectionType::class, array(
'entry_type' => LsiBeamsType::class,
'allow_add' => true,
'allow_delete' => true,
'prototype' => true,
'by_reference' => false
)
)
...
What am I doing wrong ? Let me know if you need more code.
Thanks for any reply !

Answer 1

Notes:
use Doctrine ArrayCollection to better keep track of collections
put cascade={"persist"} at the inverse side of association (where you have mappedBy)
Keep entity names singular (e.g. Lsi_beam instead of Lsi_beams)
Keep your naming strategy clear and strait. Don't use undescores in your class & property names (e.g. use $lsiBeams instead of $lsi_beams)
ProposalLsi
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
class ProposalLsi
{
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="LsiBeam", mappedBy="proposalLsi", cascade={"persist"})
*/
private $lsiBeams;
public function __construct()
{
$this->lsiBeams = new ArrayCollection();
}
public function addLsiBeam(LsiBeams $lsiBeam)
{
if ($this->lsiBeams->contains($lsiBeam)) {
return;
} else {
$lsiBeam->setProposalLsi($this);
$this->lsiBeams->add($lsiBeam);
}
return $this;
}
public function removeLsiBeam(LsiBeams $lsiBeam)
{
if (!$this->lsiBeams->contains($lsiBeam)) {
return;
} else {
$lsiBeam->setProposalLsi(null);
$this->lsiBeams->removeElement($lsiBeam);
}
return $this;
}
}
LsiBeam
class LsiBeam
{
/**
* #ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="ProposalLsi", inversedBy="lsiBeams")
*/
private $proposalLsi;
public function setProposalLsi(?ProposalLsi $proposalLsi)
{
$this->proposalLsi = $proposalLsi;
}
}