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Batch Processing

This chapter shows you how to accomplish bulk inserts, updates and deletes with Doctrine in an efficient way. The main problem with bulk operations is usually not to run out of memory and this is especially what the strategies presented here provide help with.

An ORM tool is not primarily well-suited for mass inserts, updates or deletions. Every RDBMS has its own, most effective way of dealing with such operations and if the options outlined below are not sufficient for your purposes we recommend you use the tools for your particular RDBMS for these bulk operations.

Having an SQL logger enabled when processing batches can have a serious impact on performance and resource usage. To avoid that you should remove the corresponding middleware. To remove all middlewares, you can use this line:

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$em->getConnection()->getConfiguration()->setMiddlewares([]); // DBAL 3
$em->getConnection()->getConfiguration()->setSQLLogger(null); // DBAL 2
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Bulk Inserts

Bulk inserts in Doctrine are best performed in batches, taking advantage of the transactional write-behind behavior of an EntityManager. The following code shows an example for inserting 10000 objects with a batch size of 20. You may need to experiment with the batch size to find the size that works best for you. Larger batch sizes mean more prepared statement reuse internally but also mean more work during flush.

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$batchSize = 20;
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10000; ++$i) {
    $user = new CmsUser;
    $user->setStatus('user');
    $user->setUsername('user' . $i);
    $user->setName('Mr.Smith-' . $i);
    $em->persist($user);
    if (($i % $batchSize) === 0) {
        $em->flush();
        $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
    }
}
$em->flush(); // Persist objects that did not make up an entire batch
$em->clear();
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Bulk Updates

There are 2 possibilities for bulk updates with Doctrine.

DQL UPDATE

The by far most efficient way for bulk updates is to use a DQL UPDATE query. Example:

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$q = $em->createQuery('update MyProject\Model\Manager m set m.salary = m.salary * 0.9');
$numUpdated = $q->execute();
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Iterating results

An alternative solution for bulk updates is to use the Query#toIterable() facility to iterate over the query results step by step instead of loading the whole result into memory at once. The following example shows how to do this, combining the iteration with the batching strategy that was already used for bulk inserts:

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$batchSize = 20;
$i = 0;
$q = $em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
foreach ($q->toIterable() as $user) {
    $user->increaseCredit();
    $user->calculateNewBonuses();
    ++$i;
    if (($i % $batchSize) === 0) {
        $em->flush(); // Executes all updates.
        $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
    }
}
$em->flush();
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Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental hydration.

Results may be fully buffered by the database client/ connection allocating additional memory not visible to the PHP process. For large sets this may easily kill the process for no apparent reason.

Bulk Deletes

There are two possibilities for bulk deletes with Doctrine. You can either issue a single DQL DELETE query or you can iterate over results removing them one at a time.

DQL DELETE

The by far most efficient way for bulk deletes is to use a DQL DELETE query.

Example:

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$q = $em->createQuery('delete from MyProject\Model\Manager m where m.salary > 100000');
$numDeleted = $q->execute();
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Iterating results

An alternative solution for bulk deletes is to use the Query#toIterable() facility to iterate over the query results step by step instead of loading the whole result into memory at once. The following example shows how to do this:

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$batchSize = 20;
$i = 0;
$q = $em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
foreach($q->toIterable() as $row) {
    $em->remove($row);
    ++$i;
    if (($i % $batchSize) === 0) {
        $em->flush(); // Executes all deletions.
        $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
    }
}
$em->flush();
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Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental hydration.

Iterating Large Results for Data-Processing

You can use the toIterable() method just to iterate over a large result and no UPDATE or DELETE intention. $query->toIterable() returns iterable so you can process a large result without memory problems using the following approach:

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$q = $this->_em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
foreach ($q->toIterable() as $row) {
    // do stuff with the data in the row

    // detach from Doctrine, so that it can be Garbage-Collected immediately
    $this->_em->detach($row[0]);
}
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Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental hydration.

1	<?php $em->getConnection()->getConfiguration()->setMiddlewares([]); // DBAL 3 $em->getConnection()->getConfiguration()->setSQLLogger(null); // DBAL 2
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1	<?php $batchSize = 20; for ($i = 1; $i <= 10000; ++$i) { $user = new CmsUser; $user->setStatus('user'); $user->setUsername('user' . $i); $user->setName('Mr.Smith-' . $i); $em->persist($user); if (($i % $batchSize) === 0) { $em->flush(); $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine! } } $em->flush(); // Persist objects that did not make up an entire batch $em->clear();
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1	<?php $q = $em->createQuery('update MyProject\Model\Manager m set m.salary = m.salary * 0.9'); $numUpdated = $q->execute();
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1	<?php $batchSize = 20; $i = 0; $q = $em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u'); foreach ($q->toIterable() as $user) { $user->increaseCredit(); $user->calculateNewBonuses(); ++$i; if (($i % $batchSize) === 0) { $em->flush(); // Executes all updates. $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine! } } $em->flush();
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1	<?php $q = $em->createQuery('delete from MyProject\Model\Manager m where m.salary > 100000'); $numDeleted = $q->execute();
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1	<?php $q = $this->_em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u'); foreach ($q->toIterable() as $row) { // do stuff with the data in the row // detach from Doctrine, so that it can be Garbage-Collected immediately $this->_em->detach($row[0]); }
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