Doctrine order by compound expression

Question

I want to replicate the following query which sorts all users by name, but those whose names start with Z come first:

SELECT *
FROM user
ORDER BY LEFT(name, 1) != 'Z', name

I have this:

$qb = $this->getEntityManager()->createQueryBuilder();
$qb->select('u')
    ->addSelect($qb->expr()->neq($qb->expr()->substring('u.name', 1, 1), $qb->expr()->literal('Z')) . ' AS HIDDEN firstLetterIsNotZ')
    ->from(user::class, 'u')
    ->orderBy('firstLetterIsNotZ')
    ->addOrderBy('u.name');

The generated DQL looks sane enough:

SELECT s, SUBSTRING(u.name, 1, 1) <> 'Z' AS HIDDEN descriptionFirstLetter
FROM user u
ORDER BY firstLetterIsNotZASC, s.description ASC

But the lexer does not like it: Error: Expected Doctrine\\ORM\\Query\\Lexer::T_FROM, got '<'

Answer 1

Doctrine does not handle conditions well inside of the select statement.

You can circumvent the issue by wrapping your condition with a CASE WHEN to produce your desired result.

I've also parameterized the letter condition to allow it to be more portable, in case you wish to add it as dynamic value.

$em = $this->getEntityManager();
$expr = $em->getExpressionBuilder();
$q = $em->createQueryBuilder()
    ->select('u')
    ->addSelect('(CASE WHEN ' . $expr->neq($expr->substring('u.name', 1, 1), ':letter') . ' THEN 0 ELSE 1 END) AS HIDDEN firstLetterIsNotZ')
    ->from(user::class, 'u')
    ->orderBy('firstLetterIsNotZ')
    ->addOrderBy('u.name')
    ->setParameter('letter', 'Z')
    ->getQuery();

dump($q->getDQL());
dump($q->getResult());

Resulting DQL

SELECT u, (CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(u.name, 1, 1) <> :letter THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS HIDDEN firstLetterIsNotZ 
FROM user u 
ORDER BY firstLetterIsNotZ ASC, u.name ASC

Resulting Data: (firstLetterIsNotZ not HIDDEN)

array:3 [▼
  0 => array:2 [▼
    0 => User {#2163 ▶}
    "firstLetterIsNotZ" => "0"
  ]
  1 => array:2 [▼
    0 => User {#2167 ▶}
    "firstLetterIsNotZ" => "1"
  ]
  2 => array:2 [▼
    0 => User {#2168 ▶}
    "firstLetterIsNotZ" => "1"
  ]
]