Persisting entity with Doctrine association

Question

I'm having trouble trying to persist an entity with an association using Doctrine.

Here's the mapping on my owning side: (User.php)

/** @Role_id @Column(type="integer") nullable=false */
private $role_id;

/** 
 * @ManyToOne(targetEntity="Roles\Entities\Role")
 * @JoinColumn(name="role_id", referencedColumnName="id")
 */
private $role;

There's no mapping on the inverse side, I tried with (OneToMany) and it didn't seem to make a difference.

Basically, I'm passing a default value of 2 (integer) to a method setRole_id but it shows up as blank when I actually go to persist the entity which causes a MySQL error as that column doesn't allow nulls .

Edit 1:

Literally just persisting this for role_id

$this->user->setRole_id( 2 );

Cheers,

Ewan

Answer 1

Your mapping seems incorrect. Try to rewrite it as follows:

/** 
 * @ManyToOne(targetEntity="Roles\Entities\Role")
 * @JoinColumn(name="role_id", referencedColumnName="id", nullable=false)
 */
private $role;

In other words, you only need to describe the role_id as the join column of your relationship. You don't need to map it as a "normal" column. Then just write and use a regular setter declared like the one below:

public function setRole(Roles\Entities\Role $role) {

    $this->role = $role;
}

Use the above instead of $this->user->setRole_id(2) and persist your user entity. Doctrine should automatically take care of storing the correct entity ID in the foreign key field for you.