Symfony - Return type for Doctrine entity

Question

Since php7 we already know that it is possible to declare the function's return type. Then if that function returns something else, an exception is thrown.

Now I would like to use this new feature when a function in my Symfony project returns a Doctrine entity. So I tried to declare a function like this:

public function getEntity(array $conditions, string $entityClass): ?object
{
    // some logic...
    return $queryBuilder->setMaxResults(1)->getQuery()->getOneOrNullResult();
}

As you can see it must return null or object variable. However, it seems that object doesn't work as expected because I got an exception:

Type error: Return value of HelperBundle\\MyHelper::getEntity() must be an instance of HelperBundle\\object or null, instance of AppBundle\\Entity\\MyEntity returned

I'm actually not sure about what this message means: should returned object derive from a class located in HelperBundle or what?

But generally speaking, is there a way to declare a return type for a generic Doctrine entity without using custom base classes or interfaces?

Answer 1

I've just now read an article about this and it's not supported to have a return type-hinting as object

You can however in PHP 7.2: http://php.net/manual/en/migration72.new-features.php

Answer 2

To address you first question, I will just say that this declaration

public function getEntity(array $conditions, string $entityClass): ?object

is understood by PHP <7.2 as if you declared object class in HelperBundle namespace.