Duplicate entry with form choices - php

Question

I have a classified with categories. My classified can have one or several categories:
/**
* #ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="Category", mappedBy="classified", cascade={"persist"}, orphanRemoval=true)
*/
protected $categories;
An important thing to know is that my Category entity has composite primary keys : the ID of the category, and the classified.
I want to populate categories into my classified with a choices field:
$builder->add(
$builder->create('categories', ChoiceType::class, [
'choices' => [
'Category 1' => 1,
'Category 2' => 2,
'Category 3' => 3,
'Category 4' => 4,
],
'multiple' => true,
])->addModelTransformer(new CallbackTransformer(
// Transform collection of entities into an array of IDs
function($categories) {
if (!$categories) {
return [];
}
return $categories->map(function(Category $category) {
return $category->getId();
})->toArray();
},
// Reverse transform IDs array from request to a collection of entities
function($categories) {
$items = [];
if ($categories && is_array($categories)) {
foreach ($categories as $id) {
$items[] = new Category($id);
}
}
return $items;
}
))
);
As you can see I have a transformer to convert the categories collection to a list of ID, and vice versa.
Everything is fine during the creation of my classified, but edition is bugged.
My problem is that when I submit the form, I have duplicate entries issues:
An exception occurred while executing 'INSERT INTO tv_classified_category (id, classified_id) VALUES (?, ?)' with params [4, 1]:
SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1062 Duplicate entry '4-1' for key 'PRIMARY'
Here is what I found when I dump the list of categories before and after handleRequest:
dump($classified->getCategories()->toArray());
$form->handleRequest($request);
if ($form->isValid()) {
dump($classified->getCategories()->toArray());
Debug result:
array:2 [▼
0 => Category {#1036 ▶}
1 => Category {#1038 ▶}
]
array:3 [▼
2 => Category {#4108 ▶}
3 => Category {#4110 ▶}
]
As you can see, there is a strange mismatch between keys, and the PHP ids of objects are differents before and after the handleRequest call. What is wrong and how can I fix this?
Regards,

Answer 1

So I found that the problem is that when an item is removed then added again in the collection, it causes a duplicate entry because Doctrine performs inserts before deletions.
To fix my problem, I need to make sure that same Category objects are used if my categories already in the classified. The only way I found to do this is some uggly code that will probably be broken one day. I hope anybody will find a better way to do this than the code bellow.
// Add the listener on the categories field (a ChoiceType field)
->addEventListener(FormEvents::POST_SUBMIT, function(FormEvent $event) {
$form = $event->getForm();
$categories = $form->getData();
$classified = $form->getParent()->getData();
$classifiedCategories = [];
foreach ($classified->getCategories() as $classifiedCategory) {
$classifiedCategories[$classifiedCategory->getId()] = $classifiedCategory;
}
$modelData = new ArrayCollection();
foreach ($categories as $category) {
$modelData->add($classifiedCategories[$category->getId()] ?? $category);
}
// This is uggly, don't reproduce this at home kids :)
$refProperty = new \ReflectionProperty($form, 'modelData');
$refProperty->setAccessible(true);
$refProperty->setValue($form, $modelData);
})
I need to do this stuff in POST_SUBMIT (and use Reflection) because in SUBMIT I only get the flat view data and not the ArrayCollection.