Symfony Form EntityType without Hydration - php

Question

I am building a website with quite some nested objects. Slowly but surely as the database grows larger the Doctrine associations are starting to really show. One of the most important issue I have is the fact that I need to create dropdowns so the users can relate some of these entities. The code below is part of one of my FormTypes used to generate my forms.
$builder
->add('sidebarcontent')
->add('publicAgenda')
->add('assets')
->add('structure')
->add('history')
->add('emblem')
->add('demonym')
->add('type', EntityType::Class, array(
'class' => 'ContentBundle\Entity\OrganizationType',
'choice_label' => 'name',
'empty_data' => '',
'required' => false,
'query_builder' =>function (EntityRepository $er) use ( $world ) {
return $er->createQueryBuilder('c')
->orderBy('c.name', 'ASC');
}))
->add('geographicLocation', EntityType::Class, array(
'class' => 'ContentBundle\Entity\Location',
'choice_label' => 'title',
'empty_data' => '',
'required' => false,
'query_builder' =>function (EntityRepository $er) use ( $world ) {
return $er->createQueryBuilder('c')
->where('c.world = ?1')
->setParameter(1, $world)
->andWhere('c.state != ?2')
->setParameter(2, 'archived')
->orderBy('c.title', 'ASC');
}
))
->add('parent', EntityType::Class, array(
'class' => 'ContentBundle\Entity\Organization',
'choice_label' => 'title',
'empty_data' => '',
'required' => false,
'query_builder' =>function (EntityRepository $er) use ( $world ) {
return $er->createQueryBuilder('c')
->where('c.world = ?1')
->setParameter(1, $world)
->andWhere('c.state != ?2')
->setParameter(2, 'archived')
->orderBy('c.title', 'ASC');
}
))
->add('ethnicities', EntityType::Class, array(
'class' => 'ContentBundle\Entity\Ethnicity',
'choice_label' => 'title',
'empty_data' => '',
'multiple' => true,
'expanded' => true,
'required' => false,
'query_builder' =>function (EntityRepository $er) use ( $world ) {
return $er->createQueryBuilder('c')
->where('c.world = ?1')
->setParameter(1, $world)
->andWhere('c.state != ?2')
->setParameter(2, 'archived')
->orderBy('c.title', 'ASC');
}
));
Is there a way to fetch these entities down to the bare minimum (uuid, title) and not Hydrate them? I am not even sure if this is the right question to be asking. I am just trying to lower the loading time I have right now.

Answer 1

EntityType form field required entity object and you cannot select only required fields because otherwise, it wouldn't know what to persist in an entity relation.
If you really need to pull only certain fields you have to use ChoiceType fields. But remember, while persisting an entity it would require to have objects for the related entities.
As another option, You can also try using choices parameter with doctrine query results found and that way you can cache your query and/or query results.
For example:
replace query_builder parameter with choices parameter in form.
$choices = $this->createQueryBuilder('c')
->where('c.world = ?1')
->setParameter(1, $world)
->andWhere('c.state != ?2')
->setParameter(2, 'archived')
->orderBy('c.title', 'ASC');
->getQuery()
->useQueryCache(true)
->useResultCache(true, 3600) // this will cache most common results for a while.
->execute();
And then the field would be as follow.
->add('geographicLocation', EntityType::Class, array(
'class' => 'ContentBundle\Entity\Location',
'choice_label' => 'title',
'empty_data' => '',
'required' => false,
'choices' => $choices
))