Doctrine2 + Symfony2: Cast values before bind to DQL query

Question

I'm building a function for filter some records based on four parameters: $codigo, $anno, $term and $comite_tecnico. This is what I build until now:

public function filtrarNorma($codigo = null, $anno = null, $term = null, $comite_tecnico = null)
{
    $qb = $this->getEntityManager()->createQueryBuilder();
    $qb
            ->select('n')
            ->from("AppBundle:Norma", "n");

    if ($codigo != NULL) {
        $qb->where($qb->expr()->like('n.numero', ':codigo'));
        $qb->setParameter('codigo', '%' . $codigo . '%');
    }

    if ($anno != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.anno', ':anno'));
        $qb->setParameter('anno', '%' . $anno . '%');
    }

    if ($term != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.nombre', ':term'));
        $qb->setParameter('term', '%' . $term. '%');
    }

    if ($comite_tecnico != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.comite_tecnico', ':comite_tecnico'));
        $qb->setParameter('comite_tecnico', '%' . $comite_tecnico . '%');
    }

    return $qb->getQuery()->getResult();
}

Any time I try to perform a query I get this error:

An exception occurred while executing 'SELECT n0_.numero AS numero0, n0_.anno AS anno1, n0_.id AS id2, n0_.nombre AS nombre3, n0_.activo AS activo4, n0_.comite_tecnico_id AS comite_tecnico_id5 FROM nomencladores.norma n0_ WHERE n0_.numero LIKE ? OR n0_.anno LIKE ?' with params ["34", 45]:

SQLSTATE[42883]: Undefined function: 7 ERROR: operator does not exist: integer ~~ unknown LINE 1: ...dores.norma n0_ WHERE n0_.numero LIKE $1 OR n0_.anno LIKE $2 ^ HINT: No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You might need to add explicit type casts.

That's telling me that I need to cast some of those parameters before send it to the PgSQL DB and execute the query to get results but my question is, how I do that on Doctrine2 DQL? It's possible? Any workaround or trick or something else? I've found this documentation but don't know which function apply and also how, can any give me some help or advice around this?

Edit with new tests

After users suggestions I made some changes to my code and now it looks like:

public function filtrarNorma($codigo = null, $anno = null, $term = null, $comite_tecnico = null)
{
    $qb = $this->getEntityManager()->createQueryBuilder();
    $qb
            ->select('n')
            ->from("AppBundle:Norma", "n");

    if ($codigo != NULL) {
        $qb->where($qb->expr()->like('n.numero', ':codigo'));
        $qb->setParameter('codigo', '%'.$codigo.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
    }

    if ($anno != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.anno', ':anno'));
        $qb->setParameter('anno', $anno, PDO::PARAM_INT);
    }

    if ($term != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.nombre', ':term'));
        $qb->setParameter('term', '%'.$term.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
    }

    if ($comite_tecnico != NULL) {
        $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('IDENTITY(n.comite_tecnico)', ':comite_tecnico'));
        $qb->setParameter('comite_tecnico', '%'.$comite_tecnico.'%', PDO::PARAM_INT);
    }

    return $qb->getQuery()->getResult();
}

But once again, get the same error:

An exception occurred while executing 'SELECT n0_.numero AS numero0, n0_.anno AS anno1, n0_.id AS id2, n0_.nombre AS nombre3, n0_.activo AS activo4, n0_.comite_tecnico_id AS comite_tecnico_id5 FROM nomencladores.norma n0_ WHERE n0_.numero LIKE ? OR n0_.anno LIKE ?' with params ["%4%", "4"]:

SQLSTATE[42883]: Undefined function: 7 ERROR: operator does not exist: integer ~~ unknown LINE 1: ...dores.norma n0_ WHERE n0_.numero LIKE $1 OR n0_.anno LIKE $2 ^ HINT: No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You might need to add explicit type casts.

And as you may notice in this case params are passed as should be: ["%4%", "4"] but why the error? Still not getting where it's

Another test

So, getting ride of Doctrine Query Builder and applying some Doctrine Query Language I moved the query from the code above to this one:

    $em = $this->getEntityManager();
    $query = $em->createQuery("SELECT n from AppBundle:Norma n WHERE n.numero LIKE '%:codigo%' OR n.anno LIKE '%:anno%' OR n.nombre LIKE '%:term%' OR IDENTITY(n.comite_tecnico) LIKE '%:comite_tecnico%'");
    $query->setParameters(array(
            'codigo' => $codigo,
            'anno' => $anno,
            'term' => $term,
            'comite_tecnico' => $comite_tecnico
        ));

    return $query->getResult();

But in this case I get this message:

Invalid parameter number: number of bound variables does not match number of tokens

If the query is made by OR should be the four parameters required?

Answer 1

After a deep research I've found the solution to my problem and want to share with others too. I should said also thanks to @ErwinBrandstetter, @b.b3rn4rd for their time and support and to @Pradeep which finally give me the idea for research and finally get problem fixed and I did by enabling implicit casting support in PostgreSQL.

For enable implicit casts you must therefore execute the following commands in your PostgreSQL console when connected to the template1 database, so that any database created afterward will come with the required CASTs (if your database is already created, execute the commands in your database as well):

CREATE FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(integer) RETURNS text STRICT IMMUTABLE LANGUAGE SQL AS 'SELECT textin(int4out($1));';
CREATE CAST (integer AS text) WITH FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(integer) AS IMPLICIT;
COMMENT ON FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(integer) IS 'convert integer to text';

CREATE FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(bigint) RETURNS text STRICT IMMUTABLE LANGUAGE SQL AS 'SELECT textin(int8out($1));';
CREATE CAST (bigint AS text) WITH FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(bigint) AS IMPLICIT;
COMMENT ON FUNCTION pg_catalog.text(bigint) IS 'convert bigint to text';

That's all, after running that on the current DB I'm using and also on template1 for future ones and keeping conditions on my code as follow, all works fine and without any errors:

if ($codigo != null) {
    $qb->where($qb->expr()->like('n.numero', ':codigo'));
    $qb->setParameter('codigo', '%'.$codigo.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
}

if ($anno != null) {
    $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.anno', ':anno'));
    $qb->setParameter('anno', '%'.$anno.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
}

if ($term != null) {
    $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('n.nombre', ':term'));
    $qb->setParameter('term', '%'.$term.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
}

if ($comite_tecnico != null) {
    $qb->orWhere($qb->expr()->like('IDENTITY(n.comite_tecnico)', ':comite_tecnico'));
    $qb->setParameter('comite_tecnico', '%'.$comite_tecnico.'%', PDO::PARAM_STR);
}

Happy coding!!