Using DQL functions inside Doctrine 2 ORDER BY - php

Question

I'm doing a project in Symfony 2.3 with Doctrine 2.4 using MySQL database.
I have an Entity of FieldValue (simplified):
class FieldValue
{
/**
* The ID
*
* #var integer
*/
protected $fieldValueId;
/**
* Id of associated Field entity
*
* #var integer
*/
protected $fieldId;
/**
* Id of associated user
*
* #var integer
*/
protected $userId;
/**
* The value for the Field that user provided
*
* #var string
*/
protected $userValue;
/**
* #var \MyProjectBundle\Entity\Field
*/
protected $field;
/**
* #var \MyProjectBundle\Entity\User
*/
protected $user;
The problem I have is the fact that $userValue, while it's LONGTEXT in my database, can represent either actual text value , date or number, depending in the type of the Field.
The Field can be dynamically added. After adding a one to any of the users every other user can also fill it's own value for that Field.
While querying the database I use orderBy to sort on a certain column, which also can be one of those Fields. In that case I need to sort on $userValue. This is problematic when I need to have number fields sorted as numbers, and not as strings ('123' is less than '9' in that case...).
The solution for it (I thought) is to CAST the $sort, so I would get SQL like:
ORDER BY CAST(age AS SIGNED INTEGER) ASC
Since Doctrine does not have a built-in DQL function for that, I took the liberty of adding that to my project as INT DQL function (thanks to Jasper N. Brouwer):
class CastAsInteger extends FunctionNode
{
public $stringPrimary;
public function getSql(SqlWalker $sqlWalker)
{
return 'CAST(' . $this->stringPrimary->dispatch($sqlWalker) . ' AS SIGNED INTEGER)';
}
public function parse(Parser $parser)
{
$parser->match(Lexer::T_IDENTIFIER);
$parser->match(Lexer::T_OPEN_PARENTHESIS);
$this->stringPrimary = $parser->StringPrimary();
$parser->match(Lexer::T_CLOSE_PARENTHESIS);
}
}
So happy with myself finding an easy solution I did that:
$sort = "INT(".$sort.")";
$queryBuilder->orderBy($sort, $dir);
which produced expected DQL:
ORDER BY INT(age) ASC
But also produced an exception:
An exception has been thrown during the rendering of a template ("[Syntax Error] line 0, col 12272: Error: Expected end of string, got '('") in MyProject...
So I've tried to find out what is going on and got into this in Doctrine\ORM\Query\Parser.php:
/**
* OrderByItem ::= (
* SimpleArithmeticExpression | SingleValuedPathExpression |
* ScalarExpression | ResultVariable
* ) ["ASC" | "DESC"]
*
* #return \Doctrine\ORM\Query\AST\OrderByItem
*/
public function OrderByItem()
{
...
}
Does that mean that there is no possibility to use DQL functions inside ORDER BY?
And if this is the case - is there any other way to achieve this?
UPDATE
I actually already have INT used in my select query, inside CASE WHEN:
if ($field->getFieldType() == 'number') {
$valueThen = "INT(".$valueThen.")";
}
$newFieldAlias = array("
(CASE
WHEN ...
THEN ".$valueThen."
ELSE ...
END
) as ".$field->getFieldKey());
Later on the $newFieldAlias is being added to the query.
Doesn't change anything...
UPDATE 2
Even when I add an extra select to the query, which will result in this DQL:
SELECT age, INT(age) as int_age
and then sort like that:
ORDER BY int_age ASC
I still don't het the correct result.
I've checked var_dump from $query->getResult(), and this is what I got:
'age' => string '57' (length=2)
'int_age' => string '57' (length=2)
Like CAST does not matter. I'm clueless...

Answer 1

Doctrine DQL does not accept functions as sort criteria but it does accept a "result variable". It means that you can do the following:
$q = $this->createQueryBuilder('e')
->addSelect('INT(age) as HIDDEN int_age')
->orderBy('int_age');

Answer 2

Doctrine 2 does not support INT by default, but you can use age+0.
$q = $this->createQueryBuilder('e')
->addSelect('age+0 as HIDDEN int_age')
->orderBy('int_age');

Answer 3

It is problem in your parser.php file. I have similar kind of issue and I solve this issue to replace below code in my parser file.
/**
* OrderByClause ::= "ORDER" "BY" OrderByItem {"," OrderByItem}*
*
* #return \Doctrine\ORM\Query\AST\OrderByClause
*/
public function OrderByClause()
{
$this->match(Lexer::T_ORDER);
$this->match(Lexer::T_BY);
$orderByItems = array();
$orderByItems[] = $this->OrderByItem();
while ($this->lexer->isNextToken(Lexer::T_COMMA)) {
$this->match(Lexer::T_COMMA);
$orderByItems[] = $this->OrderByItem();
}
return new AST\OrderByClause($orderByItems);
}

Answer 4

Just use this:
->orderBy('u.age + 0', 'ASC');