Doctrine2 cascade create

Question

Here some context information: I'm building a Symfony2 application with Doctrine2 and FOSRestBundle.

My problem: I want to be able to create a parent with his children with just one JSON and one database access.

My JSON looks like this:

{
    "name": "TEST_NAME",
    "info": "TEST_INFO",
    "cmts": [
        {
            "cmt": "CMT1",
            "info": "INFO1"
        },
        {
            "cmt": "CMT2",
            "info": "INFO2"
        },
        {
            "cmt": "CMT3",
            "info": "INFO3"
        }
    ]
}

Here is my TEST entity:

<?php

namespace App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

/**
* Test
*
* @ORM\Table(name="Test")
*    @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestRepository")
*/
class Test
{
    /**
     * @var integer
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
     private $id;

    /**
     * @var string
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="name", type="string", length=255)
     * @Assert\NotBlank()
     */
     private $name;

    /**
     * @var string
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="info", type="string", length=255, nullable=true)
     */
     private $info;

    /**
     * @ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity="TestCmt", mappedBy="test", fetch="EAGER", orphanRemoval=true, cascade={"merge", "remove", "persist"})
     */
     protected $cmts;

    /**
     * Constructor
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->cmts = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
    }

    /**
     * Add cmts
     *
     * @param \App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestCmt $cmts
     * @return Test
     */
    public function addCmt(\App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestCmt $cmts)
    {
        $this->cmts[] = $cmts;

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Remove cmts
     *
     * @param \App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestCmt $cmts
     */
    public function removeCmt(\App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestCmt $cmts)
    {
        $this->cmts->removeElement($cmts);
    }

    /**
     * Get cmts
     *
     * @return \Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection 
     */
    public function getCmts()
    {
        return $this->cmts;
    }

    // other getters/setters...
}

And my TESTCMT entity:

<?php

namespace App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * TestCmt
 *
 * @ORM\Table(name="TestCmt")
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\TestCmtRepository")
 */
class TestCmt
{
    /**
     * @var integer
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @var string
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="cmt", type="string", length=255)
     */
    private $cmt;

    /**
     * @var string
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="info", type="string", length=255, nullable=true)
     */
    private $info;

    /**
     * @var Test
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Test", inversedBy="cmts")
     * @ORM\JoinColumn(name="test_id", referencedColumnName="id")
     **/
    private $test;    

    /**
     * Set test
     *
     * @param \App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Test $test
     * @return TestCmt
     */
    public function setTest(\App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Test $test = null)
    {
        $this->test = $test;

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Get test
     *
     * @return \App\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Test 
     */
    public function getTest()
    {
        return $this->test;
    }
}

And finaly my postTestAction():

public function postTestAction(Request $request)
{
    $entity = $this->deserialize($request, 'App\DemoBundle\Entity\Test');

    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
    $em->persist($entity);
    $em->flush();

    return $entity;
}

When I send the JSON, TEST and TESTCMTs are created. Nevertheless, all "test_id" from the created TESTCMTs are "null"... And that's my problem!

EDIT: with SQL Server Profiler, I can see that Doctrine make that Transact SQL request:

INSERT INTO TESTCMT (test_id, cmt, info) VALUES (null, 'CMT', 'INFO')

I don't know why Doctrine can't send the test_id... TEST is created before TESTCMT, so "test_id" should be reachable for Doctrine to create the associate TESTCMTs.

Can someone helped me to fix it? :)

Answer 1

Remove @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO") and it won't let the DB generate a new id for the Entity