Multiple ManyToOne relationships in Doctrine - php

Question

A simple issue, but I cant find any documentation for it.
I want to join one table to two other tables, on the same column with the same type of relationship. Pretty simple:
I have an Address table and a User table. Quite straight forward, one user can have many addresses:
User.php
/**
* #OneToMany(targetEntity="Address", mappedBy="user", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
*/
private $addresses;
Address.php
/**
* #ManyToOne(targetEntity="User", inversedBy="addresses")
*/
private $user;
Now I want to add a new table which will also use Address (One supplier may have many addresses also).
Supplier.php
/**
* #OneToMany(targetEntity="Address", mappedBy="**???**", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
*/
private $addresses;
Obviously I cant map by User, as that points from Address to User. I suppose I could add in another foreign key in the address table, but Im wondering if there is a better way to do this and continue using the same foreign key column for both User and Address.

Answer 1

You only need to specify a mappedBy attribute when there is a bidirectional relationship to determine which side is the owning side.
From the docs:
http://docs.doctrine-project.org/en/2.0.x/reference/association-mapping.html#owning-side-and-inverse-side
A bidirectional relationship has both an owning side and an inverse side.
A unidirectional relationship only has an owning side.
The owning side of a relationship determines the updates to the relationship in the database.
...
The following rules apply to bidirectional associations:
The inverse side of a bidirectional relationship must refer to its
owning side by use of the mappedBy attribute of the OneToOne,
OneToMany, or ManyToMany mapping declaration. The mappedBy attribute
designates the field in the entity that is the owner of the
relationship.
In your case you only have unidirectional relationship which means you don't have to specify mappedBy, you may be able to leave it out.
Or you can add supplier to the Address class:
/**
* #ManyToOne(targetEntity="Supplier", inversedBy="addresses")
*/
private $supplier;
which then allows you to set mappedBy="supplier" in Supplier.php
/**
* #OneToMany(targetEntity="Address", mappedBy="supplier", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
*/
private $addresses;