Is it possible to load doctrine fixtures without deleting database - php

Question

I have defined some fixtures in doctrine.
When i try to run using this
php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load then it asks me to purge the database.
is it possible to load it without purging database.
I remeber Django has fixtures which can be loaded in separate tables without purging existing database

Answer 1

Use the --append option
php app/console help doctrine:fixtures:load
Usage:
doctrine:fixtures:load [--fixtures[="..."]] [--append] [--em="..."] [--purge-with-truncate]
Options:
--fixtures The directory or file to load data fixtures from. (multiple values allowed)
--append Append the data fixtures instead of deleting all data from the database first.
--em The entity manager to use for this command.
--purge-with-truncate Purge data by using a database-level TRUNCATE statement

Answer 2

DoctrineFixtures are nice for the first init of an empty database or in development - but not in production.
Take a look at DoctrineMigrations and symfonys DcotrineMigrationsBundle, this is a good and safe way to migrate your database in production.

Answer 3

It is possible to update previously added data to DB (which was loaded by running app/console doctrine:fixtures:load). I used EntityManager->createQuery for that.
But I still wonder if there is or ever will be an opportunity to do it by simply running an app/console command. Something like app/console doctrine:schema:update --force, but applied to the data itself.
For now I had to write a ton of code to get my data updated and appended properly. For example to make --append work I had to write the following:
class LoadCategoryData implements FixtureInterface
{
/**
* {#inheritDoc}
*/
public function load(ObjectManager $em)
{
//a category has name and shortcut name (st)
$categories = array (
[0]=> array('name' => 'foo', 'st' = 'bar'),
...
);
foreach ($categories as $cat) {
$query = $em->createQuery(
"SELECT c
FROM MyBundle:Category c
WHERE c.st = ?1"
)->setParameter(1, $cat['st'])->getResult();
if (count($query) == 0) {
$c = new Category();
$c->setName($cat['name']);
$c->setSt($cat['st']);
$em->persist($c);
}
$em->flush();
}
}
}