Symfony2 ManytoMany bidirectional relationship - How to persist manually - php

Question

I am working on a form with 2 input fields and a submit button. The first field is a simple dropdown (Category) but the other one is a tags-input field(Tag) where u can enter multiple tags at a time. Both fields accept predefined input options only.
The category option values are hardcoded in javascript:
categories = [
{"id": 1, "categoryname": "standard"},
{"id": 2, "categoryname": "premium"},
{"id": 3, "categoryname": "gold"}
];
The options for tag are fetched from the tag table in the database. Here is the screenshot of the database tables:
The Category and Tag entities are associated with Doctrine's ManytoMany bidirectional relationship, with category being the owning side.
Note: I am not using Symfony formType to create the form, instead I've used javascript for that.
The javascript works fine and I get the input data in my controller. Problem is that i've never persisted a ManytoMany relation manually.
Did read the docs but not sure if I missed anything.
Here is the Tag entity (Tag.php) :
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use AppBundle\Entity\Category;
/**
* Tag
*
* #ORM\Table(name="tag")
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="AppBundle\Repository\TagRepository")
*/
class Tag {
/**
* #var int
*
* #ORM\Column(name="Id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
*
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="TagName", type="string")
*/
protected $tagname;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Category", mappedBy="tags")
*/
protected $categories;
/**
* #return ArrayCollection
*/
public function __construct() {
$this->categories = new ArrayCollection();
}
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId()
{
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set id
*
* #return Tag
*/
public function setId($id)
{
return $this->id = $id;
}
/**
* Set tagname
*
* #param string $tagname
* #return Tag
*/
public function setTagname($tagname)
{
$this->tagname = $tagname;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get tagname
*
* #return string
*/
public function getTagname()
{
return $this->tagname;
}
/**
* Add categories
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Category $categories
* #return Tag
*/
public function addCategory(\AppBundle\Entity\Category $categories)
{
$this->categories[] = $categories;
return $this;
}
/**
* Remove categories
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Category $categories
*/
public function removeCategory(\AppBundle\Entity\Category $categories)
{
$this->categories->removeElement($categories);
}
/**
* Get categories
*
* #return \Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection
*/
public function getCategories()
{
return $this->categories;
}
}
Here is the Category entity (Category.php) :
<?php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use AppBundle\Entity\Tag;
/**
* Category
*
* #ORM\Table(name="category")
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="AppBundle\Repository\CategoryRepository")
*/
class Category {
/**
* #var int
*
* #ORM\Column(name="Id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
protected $id;
/**
*
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="CategoryName", type="string")
*/
protected $categoryname;
/**
*
* #var string
*
* #ORM\Column(name="Description", type="string")
*/
protected $description;
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Tag", cascade={"persist"}, inversedBy="categories")
*/
protected $tags;
/**
* #return ArrayCollection
*/
public function __construct() {
$this->tags = new ArrayCollection();
}
/**
* Get id
*
* #return integer
*/
public function getId() {
return $this->id;
}
/**
* Set id
*
* #return Category
*/
public function setId($id) {
return $this->id = $id;
}
/**
* Set categoryname
*
* #param string $categoryname
* #return Category
*/
public function setCategoryname($categoryname) {
$this->categoryname = $categoryname;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get categoryname
*
* #return string
*/
public function getCategoryname() {
return $this->categoryname;
}
/**
* Set description
*
* #param string $description
* #return Category
*/
public function setDescription($description) {
$this->description = $description;
return $this;
}
/**
* Get description
*
* #return string
*/
public function getDescription() {
return $this->description;
}
/**
* Add tags
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tags
* #return Category
*/
public function addTag(\AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tags) {
$this->tags[] = $tags;
return $this;
}
/**
* Remove tags
*
* #param \AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tags
*/
public function removeTag(\AppBundle\Entity\Tag $tags) {
$this->tags->removeElement($tags);
}
/**
* Get tags
*
* #return \Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection
*/
public function getTags() {
return $this->tags;
}
}
Here is the controller(DefaultController.php):
/**
* #Route("/formsubmit", options={"expose"=true}, name="my_route_to_submit")
*/
public function submitAction(Request $request) {
$jsonString = file_get_contents('php://input');
$form_data = json_decode($jsonString, true);
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
// set category details
$categoryId = $form_data[0]['id'];
$category = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Category')->findOneById($categoryId);
// set tags
$len = count($form_data[1]);
for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++) {
$tagId = $form_data[1][$i]['id'];
$tag = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Tag')->findOneById($tagId);
$category->addTag($tag);
}
// persist/save in database
$em->persist($category);
$em->flush();
}
The $form_data is an array with the input category and added tags detail. It looks like this:
$form_data = [
['id' => 3, 'categoryname' => 'gold'],
[
['id' => 1, 'tagname' => 'wifi'],
['id' => 4, 'tagname' => 'geyser'],
['id' => 2, 'tagname' => 'cable']
]
];
Still it doesn't persist. The var_dump($category); display the selected category object with category id and categoryname, but the associated tags property is empty.
Here is the screenshot of the output:
Any Ideas?
Quick question on the side: Do I need to add cascade={"persist"} to both the sides of relationship definition here?
EDIT: Here, I've hard-coded $form_data instead of using input data as I did above. The DefaultController.php :
/**
* #Route("/formsubmit", options={"expose"=true}, name="my_route_to_submit")
*/
public function submitAction(Request $request) {
$form_data = [
['id' => 3, 'categoryname' => 'gold'],
[
['id' => 1, 'tagname' => 'wifi'],
['id' => 4, 'tagname' => 'geyser'],
['id' => 2, 'tagname' => 'cable']
]
];
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
// set category details
$categoryId = $form_data[0]['id'];
$category = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Category')->findOneById($categoryId);
// set tags
$len = count($form_data[1]);
for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++) {
$tagId = $form_data[1][$i]['id'];
$tag = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Tag')->findOneById($tagId);
// $tag->addCategory($category);
$category->addTag($tag);
}
var_dump($category);
exit;
// persist/save in database
$em->persist($category);
$em->flush();
}
The controller output:
As you can see the tags property of the category object is still empty.
Hope this'll help understand the issue better.
Awaiting response...

Answer 1

When getting the appropriate tag entity by doing
$tag = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Tag')->findOneById($tagId);
Isn't the value of $tag an array of collections?
So possibly do the following?
$category->addTag($tag[0]);