Assign multiple distinct Entities to one Array row in Doctrine - php

Question

When I execute something like this in Doctrine:
$qb = $doctrine
->getRepository('EntityA')
->createQueryBuilder('a')
->addSelect('b')
->join('EntityB', 'b', 'WITH', 'a.b = b')
->getQuery()
->getResult()
I get an array that looks like this:
array(0 => EntityA,
1 => EntityB,
2 => EntityA,
4 => EntityB)
In fact, I get 2 result rows, but an array which has a size of 4. This makes iterating over it for displaying in templates nearly impossible.
I would like a result like this:
array(0 => array(EntityA, EntityB),
1 => array(EntityA, EntityB))
Of course I could create a mapping on EntityA that references EntityB. But even with the possibility to change the loading behavior, LAZY, EAGER etc., it could be desirable to have the possibility to create such relations on the fly.
For example:
In overviews with large amounts of Entities, EAGER loading is needed to prevent excessive amounts of queries. But when I want to display only one Entity and do not need the extra data, LAZY loading is more desirable.

Answer 1

Since you have EntityB mapped as EntityA.b, as indicated by this relation:
...join('EntityB', 'b', 'WITH', 'a.b = b')...
Thus you do not need in fact to add b to the select as you are loading it either eagerly or lazily.
Remove ->addSelect('b') from your query builder and use EntityB trough your EntityA.b mapping.
Example:
$as = $doctrine
->getRepository('EntityA')
->createQueryBuilder('a')
->join('EntityB', 'b', 'WITH', 'a.b = b')
->getQuery()
->getResult();
foreach($as as $a){
echo "EntityA property".$a->id;
echo "EntityB property".$a->b->id;
}
This query will return an ArrayCollection of EntityA.
Note: The example above assumes that EntityA.b is a public property.
Update:
After some digging I found this older post: Doctrine 2 QueryBuilder add multiple select elements /parameters?. According to it you can get the result you wan by directly separarating the entities with commas instead of using the ->addSelect() method.
Try the following DQL:
$query = $em->createQuery("SELECT a, b FROM EntityA a JOIN a.b b")
The query above will dynamically eagerly fetch b.