Symfony + Doctrine Oracle DateTime format issue - php

Question

I have a problem with Oracle DateTime type in Symfony 2.7 + Doctrine.
I have a table with a DateTime column which is mapped in Symfony through Doctrine.
When I try to persiste the relative Entity I got the following error:
Could not convert database value "31-MAY-16 03.56.49.000000 PM" to Doctrine Type datetime. Expected format: Y-m-d H:i:s File: .../vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/ConversionException.php Line: 63
I cannot change the default format in the Oracle Database.
I previously fixed the problem by modifing the method getDateTimeFormatString() in the vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Platforms/OraclePlatform.php and it worked.
However, since I have to use Git and "composer install ..." in order to deploy my application in production environment, all vendors are installed from the Symfony repository; in that way I lose the changes I made in OraclePlatform.php
To solve the problem without touching the verdors libraries, i tried to set the following Oracle ENV variables on httpd init start script but it doesn't work
export NLS_TIME_FORMAT="HH24:MI:SS"
export NLS_DATE_FORMAT="YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS"
export NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT="YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS"
export NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT="YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS TZH:TZM"
I found a possible solution in the Known Vendor Issues in the Doctrine documentation about PostgreSQL where they suggest to use the VarDateTimeType by overriding the type like this:
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type;
Type::overrideType('datetime', 'Doctrine\DBAL\Types\VarDateTimeType');
Type::overrideType('datetimetz', 'Doctrine\DBAL\Types\VarDateTimeType');
Type::overrideType('time', 'Doctrine\DBAL\Types\VarDateTimeType');
This seams to be the solution, however I have no idea on how to override the type with the code above but mostly where to put the above code.
Do someone have any idea?
Thanks
P.S. I'm using DateTime without timezone

Answer 1

Create a custom DBAL Type extending the DateTimeType and override the convertToPHPValue function (I copied the VarDateTimeType class, which couldn't successfully convert the Date type my Oracle installation was using):
<?php
namespace YourCompany\SomeBundle\Doctrine\DBAL\Types;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Platforms\AbstractPlatform;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ConversionException;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\DateTimeType;
class SillyDateTimeType extends DateTimeType
{
/**
* {#inheritdoc}
* #throws \Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ConversionException
*/
public function convertToPHPValue($value, AbstractPlatform $platform)
{
if ($value === null || $value instanceof \DateTime) {
return $value;
}
$val = \DateTime::createFromFormat('d-M-y H.i.s.u A', $value);
if ( ! $val instanceof \DateTime) {
throw ConversionException::conversionFailed($value, $this->getName());
}
return $val;
}
}
Replace $val = \DateTime::createFromFormat('d-M-y H.i.s.u A', $value); with whatever format your installation is returning for those columns.
Then just register it under dbal in config.yml:
# app/config/config.yml
doctrine:
dbal:
types:
sillydatetime: YourCompany\SomeBundle\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\SillyDateTimeType
Now you can use sillydatetime (or whatever you call it) anywhere in your column type specifications.

Answer 2

I fixed the problem following the proposal of this comment in Github. In app/config/config.yml (Symfony 2.3.1) I added the following block:
services:
oracle.listener:
class: Doctrine\DBAL\Event\Listeners\OracleSessionInit
tags:
- { name: doctrine.event_listener, event: postConnect }

Answer 3

I don't know about Symfony/Doctrine, but this is simple to fix with the regular OCI functions:
$conn = oci_connect('username', 'password', 'connection_string');
// get the sysdate...
$select = oci_parse($conn, 'select sysdate from dual');
oci_execute($select);
print_r(oci_fetch_row($select));
// alter the session date format...
$alter = oci_parse($conn, 'alter session set NLS_DATE_FORMAT=\'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS\'');
oci_execute($alter);
// get the sysdate again...
oci_execute($select);
print_r(oci_fetch_row($select));
This gives the output:
Array
(
[0] => 10-JUN-16
)
Array
(
[0] => 2016-06-10 13:39:34
)