Doctrine single table inheritance - many-to-many assocication not working

Question

I have different type of users containing different attributes, namely

 1. Customer, fields=[name, email]
 2. Professional, fields=[name, email, region, locations, categories, timeslots]
 3. Admin, fields=[name, email]

I expect few other type of users to be added later. I am using single table inheritance from doctrine, here is my classes.

1. User.php

namespace UserBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Component\Security\Core\User\UserInterface;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\InheritanceType("SINGLE_TABLE")
 * @ORM\Table(name="user")
 * @ORM\DiscriminatorColumn(name="discr", type="string")
 * @ORM\DiscriminatorMap({"user" = "UserBundle\Entity\User", "customer"="UserBundle\Entity\Customer", "professional"="UserBundle\Entity\Professional", "admin"="UserBundle\Entity\Admin"})
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="UserBundle\Entity\UserRepository")
 */
class User implements UserInterface
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=100, nullable=false)
     */
    private $name;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(name="email", type="string", length=100, unique=true, nullable=false)
     */
    private $email;
}

2. Professional.php

<?php

namespace UserBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use UserBundle\Entity\User;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class Professional extends User
{
    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\Region", inversedBy="professionals", cascade={"persist"})
     * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="region_id", referencedColumnName="id", unique=false, nullable=true)
     */
    private $region;

    /* @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\Location")
     * @ORM\JoinTable(name="professional_location",
     *      joinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="professional_id", referencedColumnName="id")},
     *      inverseJoinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="location_id", referencedColumnName="id", unique=false)}
     * )
     */
    private $locations;

    /* @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\Category")
     * @ORM\JoinTable(name="professional_category",
     *      joinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="professional_id", referencedColumnName="id")},
     *      inverseJoinColumns={@ORM\JoinColumn(name="category_id", referencedColumnName="id", unique=false)}
     * )
     */
    private $categories;

    /**
     * @ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="UserBundle\Entity\Timeslot", mappedBy="professional", cascade={"persist"})
     */
    private $timeslots;

3. Customer.php

<?php

namespace UserBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use UserBundle\Entity\User;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 */
class Customer extends User
{
    public function getRoles()
    {
        return ['ROLE_CUSTOMER'];
    }
}

The problem is, when I create the schema, it ignores the creation of associations in Professional Entity, for example table for locations and categories are not created, however region association works.

I understand that I can use @MappedSuperclass, the problem with this approach is duplication, this creates 3 tables with similar columns which I am trying to avoid.

How do I make many-to-many associations work with single table inheritance in doctrine2.

Thanks you.

Answer 1

I solved this, seems to be an issue with syntax used for many-to-many, the above syntax works without inheritance, but won't with inheritance, hence I changed it to following in Professional.php

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\Location", inversedBy="professionals", cascade={"persist"})
 * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="location_id", referencedColumnName="id", unique=false, nullable=true)
 */
protected $locations;

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="AppBundle\Entity\Category", inversedBy="professionals", cascade={"persist"})
 * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="category_id", referencedColumnName="id", unique=false, nullable=true)
 */
protected $categories;

And it created professional_location and professional_category table with many-to-many association.