Editing Databases and Symfony (section)

== Repository classes ==

Repository classes isolate custom queries so the can be more easily and reliably reused and tested.<ref>[http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/doctrine.html#custom-repository-classes Custom Repository Classes], Symfony documentation</ref>

=== Mapping repository classes ===

To map an entity class to a repository class, add the name of the repository class to the mapping definition in the entity class:

<syntaxhighlight lang="php" highlight="7">
// src/AppBundle/Entity/Product.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="AppBundle\Entity\ProductRepository")
 */
class Product
{
    //...
}
</syntaxhighlight>

=== Automatically generating repository classes ===

Doctrine can generate the repository class for you by running the same command used earlier to generate the missing getter and setter methods:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
$ php app/console doctrine:generate:entities AppBundle
</syntaxhighlight>

'''''Note''' that this command uses the project's database settings to connect. If the server is set to `localhost` in `parameters.yml` and the command is run from another machine, the database connection won't be correct.''

=== Adding custom queries to repository classes ===

Add methods to the repository class for each custom query:

<syntaxhighlight lang="php" highlight="5-9">
class ProductRepository extends EntityRepository
{
   public function findAllOrderedByName()
    {
        return $this->getEntityManager()
            ->createQuery(
                'SELECT p FROM AppBundle:Product p ORDER BY p.name ASC'
            )
            ->getResult();
    }
}
</syntaxhighlight>

Retrieve the results of the custom query in a controller:

<syntaxhighlight lang="php">
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$products = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:Product')
    ->findAllOrderedByName();
</syntaxhighlight>