Join columns by referencedColumnName that is not primary key - id

Question

I am rookie in Symfony Doctrine and need some help with Join entities.

Normally Column are joins by primary key ID

    /**
     * User
     *
     * @ORM\Table(name="users")
     * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="MainBundle\Repository\UserRepository")
     * UniqueEntity("email", message="Account with email already exists.")
     */
    class User implements AdvancedUserInterface, \Serializable
    {
    /**
         * @var \MainBundle\Entity\PersonDetails
         *
         * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="MainBundle\Entity\Person")
         * @ORM\JoinColumns({
         *  @ORM\JoinColumn(name="person_details_id", referencedColumnName="id", nullable=true)
         * })
         */
    private $personDetails = null;

This is ok.

But problem is that I want to Join two columns in Relation OneToOne by id field in User Entity

    /**
     * User
     *
     * @ORM\Table(name="users")
     * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="MainBundle\Repository\UserRepository")
     * UniqueEntity("email", message="Account with email already exists.")
     */
    class User implements AdvancedUserInterface, \Serializable
    {
    /**
         * @var \MainBundle\Entity\PersonDetails
         *
         * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="MainBundle\Entity\Person")
         * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="id", referencedColumnName="user_id", nullable=true)
             * })
             */
        private $personDetails = null;

When I try to join columns on this way I get error

Missing value for primary key id on MainBundle\Entity\PersonDetails

Is it possible to index other field than id or what I trying to do is impossible?

Thanks guys.

Answer 1

You have mixed up the column-name and the field-name that shall be referenced in your @JoinColumn declaration.

@JoinColumn(name="id", referencedColumnName="user_id")

This way Doctrine looks for a field/property named user_id on your User entity. I guess you want the column in the join-table to be named user_id and the entries being id's of the User entity.

UserDetail

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class UserDetail
{
    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(
     *   targetEntity="User",
     *   inversedBy="details"
     * )
     * @ORM\JoinColumn(
     *   name="user_id",
     *   referencedColumnName="id"
     * )
     */
    protected $user;

    public function setUser(User $user)
    { 
        $this->user = $user;

        return $this;
    }

    /** @ORM\Column() */
    protected $key;

    /** @ORM\Column() */
    protected $value;

    public function __construct($key, $value)
    {
       $this->key = $key;
       $this->value = $value;
    }

User

class User
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id()
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    protected $id;

    /** 
     * @ORM\OneToMany(
     *   targetEntity="UserDetail",
     *   mappedBy="user", 
     *   cascade={
     *     "persist",
     *     "remove",
     *     "merge"
     *   },
     *   orphanRemoval=true
     * )
     */
    protected $details;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->details = new ArrayCollection();
    }

    public function addDetail(UserDetail $detail)
    {
        $detail->setUser($this);
        $this->details->add($detail);

        return $this;
    }

Now if you add a detail to your User like this and persist/flush afterwards:

$user->addDetail(new UserDetail('Height', '173cm'));

This will result in a join-colum in the user_detail table that looks like this:

| key           | value     | user_id |
|---------------|-----------|---------|
| Height        | 173cm     | 1       |