Unknown Column Type "Varchar" - php

Question

Using Doctrine, I am being presented the following error:
[2016-09-14 21:24:44] request.CRITICAL: Uncaught PHP Exception Doctrine\DBAL\DBALException: "Unknown column type "varchar" requested. Any Doctrine type that you use has to be registered with \Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type::addType(). You can get a list of all the known types with \Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type::getTypeMap(). If this error occurs during database introspection then you might have forgot to register all database types for a Doctrine Type. Use AbstractPlatform#registerDoctrineTypeMapping() or have your custom types implement Type#getMappedDatabaseTypes(). If the type name is empty you might have a problem with the cache or forgot some mapping information." at /var/www/project/apps/ProjectName/trunk/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/DBALException.php line 114 {"exception":"[object] (Doctrine\\DBAL\\DBALException(code: 0): Unknown column type \"varchar\" requested. Any Doctrine type that you use has to be registered with \\Doctrine\\DBAL\\Types\\Type::addType(). You can get a list of all the known types with \\Doctrine\\DBAL\\Types\\Type::getTypeMap(). If this error occurs during database introspection then you might have forgot to register all database types for a Doctrine Type. Use AbstractPlatform#registerDoctrineTypeMapping() or have your custom types implement Type#getMappedDatabaseTypes(). If the type name is empty you might have a problem with the cache or forgot some mapping information. at /var/www/project/apps/ProjectName/trunk/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/DBALException.php:114)"} []
the relevant class looks as such
<?php
namespace Project\DBALBundle\Entity\Url;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use JMS\Serializer\Annotation as JMSS;
/**
* Profile
*
* #ORM\Table(name="Profile")
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="Project\DBALBundle\Entity\Url\ProfileRepository")
*/
class ProfileRepository {
/**
* #var string $id
*
* #ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer", length=11, nullable=false)
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
/**
* #var string $label
*
* #ORM\Column(name="label", type="string", length=50, nullable=false)
*/
private $label;
/**
* #return string
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* #param string $id
*/
public function setId($id)
{
$this->id = $id;
}
/**
* #return string
*/
public function getLabel()
{
return $this->label;
}
/**
* #param string $label
*/
public function setLabel($label)
{
$this->label = $label;
}
public function __toString()
{
return $this->label;
}
}
With the above class and annotation-defined mappings, I receive the error. However, if I change the field private $label to private $labelField and update the associated references, everything works just fine and the data is accessed as expected.
Insofar as I have been able to search, there is nothing special about the field private $label. It is not a reserved keyword, and I can find nothing mentioning anything special about it either with PHP itself or Doctrine specifically. So why does this break?

Answer 1

My guess will be it's a caching problem. You had probably tried at some point this code,
/**
* #var string $label
*
* #ORM\Column(name="label", type="varchar", length=50, nullable=false)
*/
private $label;
and this class has got cached by opcache (or similar). Opcache pays no attention to annotations (it's just a comments for it), so no matter what you change in annotations, it's still using this cached version of the code.
But when you change a property name, it realizes that it's a newer version of class and parses annotations once again (that's why with labelField code worked).
But that's just a speculation. I would try to debug it with Xdebug to find out an exact problem.
P.S. Doctrine version 2.3 is quite old, isn't it?