Doctrine 2: Understand how entities works with doctrine 2 - php

Question

I have 3 Entities: Person, Affiliation and PersonAffiliation.
In my form, I will display each affiliation as a checked checkbox.
Nowm when the user uncecks the checkbox and click submit, this affiliation should be removed from the PersonAffiliation table.
The problem is that when I submit without unchecking, my data are duplicated.
Example: aff1 and aff2. When both checked and submit, I will then get aff1 aff1 aff2 aff2.
The same, If I uncheck aff2, I will then have aff1 aff1.
The error is probably somewhere in using the doctrine:
Here is how I am managing that:
Entity Persom
#ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="PersonAffiliation", mappedBy="person", cascade={"persist", "remove"})
protected $affiliations;
Entity Affiliation:
#ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="PersonAffiliation", mappedBy="affiliation")
protected $person_affiliations;
Entity PersonAffiliation
#ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Person", inversedBy="affiliations")
#ORM\JoinColumn(name="person_id", referencedColumnName="id")
protected $person;
#ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Affiliation", inversedBy="person_affiliations")
#ORM\JoinColumn(name="affiliation_id", referencedColumnName="id")
protected $affiliation;
An idea on how to resolve that?
Thank you.
EDIT:
Cotroller part:
foreach( $enquiry->getAffiliations() as $aff )
{
$pAff = new PersonAffiliation();
$pAff->setPersonId( $person->getId() );
$pAff->setAffiliationId( $aff->getAffiliation()->getId() );
$pAff->setPerson( $person );
$pAff->setAffiliation( $aff->getAffiliation() );
$em->persist($pAff);
$em->flush();
}
Form Part:
public function buildForm(FormBuilder $builder, array $options)
{
$person = $this->person;
$user = $this->user;
$builder->add('firstname', 'text');
$builder->add('middlename', 'text', array('required'=>false));
$builder->add('lastname', 'text');
$builder->add('sex', 'choice', array( 'choices' => array('m' => 'Male', 'f' => 'Female'),
'required' => true,
'multiple' => false,
'expanded' => true));
$builder->add('email', 'text', array('required'=>false));
if( $this->addAffiliations ) {
$builder->add('affiliations', 'entity', array(
'label' => 'Athor\'s affiliations',
'class' => 'SciForumVersion2Bundle:PersonAffiliation',
'query_builder' => function($em) use ($person, $user){
return $em->createQueryBuilder('pa')
->where('pa.person_id = :pid')
->setParameter('pid', $person->getId());
},
'property' => 'affiliation',
'multiple' => true,
'expanded' => true,
));
}
}

Answer 1

In the Person entity :
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Affiliation", inversedBy="people")
* #ORM\JoinTable(name="PersonAffiliation")
*/
protected $affiliations;
And in the Affiliation entity :
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Person", mappedBy="affiliations")
*/
protected $people;

Answer 2

You made a $em->flush() on each iteration of the foreach. It should be done after the end of foreach isnt'it ?
Moreover, you may use a ManyToMany relation.