Association Mapping
This chapter explains mapping associations between objects.
Instead of working with foreign keys in your code, you will always work with references to objects instead and Doctrine will convert those references to foreign keys internally.
- A reference to a single object is represented by a foreign key.
- A collection of objects is represented by many foreign keys pointing to the object holding the collection
This chapter is split into three different sections.
- A list of all the possible association mapping use-cases is given.
- Mapping Defaults are explained that simplify the use-case examples.
- Collections are introduced that contain entities in associations.
One tip for working with relations is to read the relation from left to right, where the left word refers to the current Entity. For example:
- OneToMany - One instance of the current Entity has Many instances (references) to the referred Entity.
- ManyToOne - Many instances of the current Entity refer to One instance of the referred Entity.
- OneToOne - One instance of the current Entity refers to One instance of the referred Entity.
See below for all the possible relations.
An association is considered to be unidirectional if only one side of the association has a property referring to the other side.
To gain a full understanding of associations you should also read about owning and inverse sides of associations
Many-To-One, Unidirectional
A many-to-one association is the most common association between objects. Example: Many Users have One Address:
The above |
Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE User (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
address_id INT DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Address (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE User ADD FOREIGN KEY (address_id) REFERENCES Address(id);
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One-To-One, Unidirectional
Here is an example of a one-to-one association with a Product
entity that
references one Shipment
entity.
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class Product
{
// ...
/** One Product has One Shipment. */
#[OneToOne(targetEntity: Shipment::class)]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'shipment_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
private Shipment|null $shipment = null;
// ...
}
#[Entity]
class Shipment
{
// ...
}
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Note that the #[JoinColumn]
is not really necessary in this example,
as the defaults would be the same.
Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE Product (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
shipment_id INT DEFAULT NULL,
UNIQUE INDEX UNIQ_6FBC94267FE4B2B (shipment_id),
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Shipment (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE Product ADD FOREIGN KEY (shipment_id) REFERENCES Shipment(id);
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One-To-One, Bidirectional
Here is a one-to-one relationship between a Customer
and a
Cart
. The Cart
has a reference back to the Customer
so
it is bidirectional.
Here we see the mappedBy
and inversedBy
attributes for the first time.
They are used to tell Doctrine which property on the other side refers to the
object.
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class Customer
{
// ...
/** One Customer has One Cart. */
#[OneToOne(targetEntity: Cart::class, mappedBy: 'customer')]
private Cart|null $cart = null;
// ...
}
#[Entity]
class Cart
{
// ...
/** One Cart has One Customer. */
#[OneToOne(targetEntity: Customer::class, inversedBy: 'cart')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'customer_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
private Customer|null $customer = null;
// ...
}
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Note that the @JoinColumn is not really necessary in this example, as the defaults would be the same.
Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE Cart (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
customer_id INT DEFAULT NULL,
UNIQUE INDEX UNIQ_BA388B79395C3F3 (customer_id),
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Customer (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE Cart ADD FOREIGN KEY (customer_id) REFERENCES Customer(id);
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We had a choice of sides on which to place the inversedBy
attribute. Because it
is on the Cart
, that is the owning side of the relation, and thus holds the
foreign key.
One-To-One, Self-referencing
You can define a self-referencing one-to-one relationships like below.
Note that the @JoinColumn is not really necessary in this example, as the defaults would be the same.
With the generated MySQL Schema:
One-To-Many, Bidirectional
A one-to-many association has to be bidirectional, unless you are using a join table. This is because the "many" side in a one-to-many association holds the foreign key, making it the owning side. Doctrine needs the "many" side defined in order to understand the association.
This bidirectional mapping requires the mappedBy
attribute on the
"one" side and the inversedBy
attribute on the "many" side.
This means there is no difference between a bidirectional one-to-many and a bidirectional many-to-one.
1 <?php
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
#[Entity]
class Product
{
// ...
/**
* One product has many features. This is the inverse side.
* @var Collection<int, Feature>
*/
#[OneToMany(targetEntity: Feature::class, mappedBy: 'product')]
private Collection $features;
// ...
public function __construct() {
$this->features = new ArrayCollection();
}
}
#[Entity]
class Feature
{
// ...
/** Many features have one product. This is the owning side. */
#[ManyToOne(targetEntity: Product::class, inversedBy: 'features')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'product_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
private Product|null $product = null;
// ...
}
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Note that the @JoinColumn is not really necessary in this example, as the defaults would be the same.
Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE Product (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Feature (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
product_id INT DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE Feature ADD FOREIGN KEY (product_id) REFERENCES Product(id);
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One-To-Many, Unidirectional with Join Table
A unidirectional one-to-many association can be mapped through a join table. From Doctrine's point of view, it is simply mapped as a unidirectional many-to-many whereby a unique constraint on one of the join columns enforces the one-to-many cardinality.
The following example sets up such a unidirectional one-to-many association:
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class User
{
// ...
/**
* Many Users have Many Phonenumbers.
* @var Collection<int, Phonenumber>
*/
#[JoinTable(name: 'users_phonenumbers')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'user_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[InverseJoinColumn(name: 'phonenumber_id', referencedColumnName: 'id', unique: true)]
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: 'Phonenumber')]
private Collection $phonenumbers;
public function __construct()
{
$this->phonenumbers = new ArrayCollection();
}
// ...
}
#[Entity]
class Phonenumber
{
// ...
}
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Generates the following MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE User (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE users_phonenumbers (
user_id INT NOT NULL,
phonenumber_id INT NOT NULL,
UNIQUE INDEX users_phonenumbers_phonenumber_id_uniq (phonenumber_id),
PRIMARY KEY(user_id, phonenumber_id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Phonenumber (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE users_phonenumbers ADD FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES User(id);
ALTER TABLE users_phonenumbers ADD FOREIGN KEY (phonenumber_id) REFERENCES Phonenumber(id);
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One-To-Many, Self-referencing
You can also setup a one-to-many association that is
self-referencing. In this example we setup a hierarchy of
Category
objects by creating a self referencing relationship.
This effectively models a hierarchy of categories and from the
database perspective is known as an adjacency list approach.
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class Category
{
// ...
/**
* One Category has Many Categories.
* @var Collection<int, Category>
*/
#[OneToMany(targetEntity: Category::class, mappedBy: 'parent')]
private Collection $children;
/** Many Categories have One Category. */
#[ManyToOne(targetEntity: Category::class, inversedBy: 'children')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'parent_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
private Category|null $parent = null;
// ...
public function __construct() {
$this->children = new ArrayCollection();
}
}
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Note that the @JoinColumn is not really necessary in this example, as the defaults would be the same.
Generated MySQL Schema:
Many-To-Many, Unidirectional
Real many-to-many associations are less common. The following example shows a unidirectional association between User and Group entities:
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class User
{
// ...
/**
* Many Users have Many Groups.
* @var Collection<int, Group>
*/
#[JoinTable(name: 'users_groups')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'user_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[InverseJoinColumn(name: 'group_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: Group::class)]
private Collection $groups;
// ...
public function __construct() {
$this->groups = new ArrayCollection();
}
}
#[Entity]
class Group
{
// ...
}
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Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE User (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE users_groups (
user_id INT NOT NULL,
group_id INT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(user_id, group_id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE Group (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE users_groups ADD FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES User(id);
ALTER TABLE users_groups ADD FOREIGN KEY (group_id) REFERENCES Group(id);
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Why are many-to-many associations less common? Because frequently you want to associate additional attributes with an association, in which case you introduce an association class. Consequently, the direct many-to-many association disappears and is replaced by one-to-many/many-to-one associations between the 3 participating classes. |
For many-to-many associations, the ORM takes care of managing rows in the join table connecting both sides. Due to the way it deals with entity removals, database-level constraints may not work the way one might intuitively assume. Thus, be sure not to miss the section on join table management. |
Many-To-Many, Bidirectional
Here is a similar many-to-many relationship as above except this one is bidirectional.
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class User
{
// ...
/**
* Many Users have Many Groups.
* @var Collection<int, Group>
*/
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: Group::class, inversedBy: 'users')]
#[JoinTable(name: 'users_groups')]
private Collection $groups;
public function __construct() {
$this->groups = new ArrayCollection();
}
// ...
}
#[Entity]
class Group
{
// ...
/**
* Many Groups have Many Users.
* @var Collection<int, User>
*/
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: User::class, mappedBy: 'groups')]
private Collection $users;
public function __construct() {
$this->users = new ArrayCollection();
}
// ...
}
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The MySQL schema is exactly the same as for the Many-To-Many uni-directional case above.
For many-to-many associations, the ORM takes care of managing rows in the join table connecting both sides. Due to the way it deals with entity removals, database-level constraints may not work the way one might intuitively assume. Thus, be sure not to miss the section on join table management. |
Owning and Inverse Side on a ManyToMany Association
For Many-To-Many associations you can chose which entity is the owning and which the inverse side. There is a very simple semantic rule to decide which side is more suitable to be the owning side from a developers perspective. You only have to ask yourself which entity is responsible for the connection management, and pick that as the owning side.
Take an example of two entities Article
and Tag
. Whenever
you want to connect an Article to a Tag and vice-versa, it is
mostly the Article that is responsible for this relation. Whenever
you add a new article, you want to connect it with existing or new
tags. Your "Create Article" form will probably support this notion
and allow specifying the tags directly. This is why you should pick
the Article as owning side, as it makes the code more
understandable:
1 <?php
class Article
{
private Collection $tags;
public function addTag(Tag $tag): void
{
$tag->addArticle($this); // synchronously updating inverse side
$this->tags[] = $tag;
}
}
class Tag
{
private Collection $articles;
public function addArticle(Article $article): void
{
$this->articles[] = $article;
}
}
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This allows to group the tag adding on the Article
side of the
association:
Many-To-Many, Self-referencing
You can even have a self-referencing many-to-many association. A
common scenario is where a User
has friends and the target
entity of that relationship is a User
so it is self
referencing. In this example it is bidirectional so User
has a
field named $friendsWithMe
and $myFriends
.
1 <?php
#[Entity]
class User
{
// ...
/**
* Many Users have Many Users.
* @var Collection<int, User>
*/
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: User::class, mappedBy: 'myFriends')]
private Collection $friendsWithMe;
/**
* Many Users have many Users.
* @var Collection<int, User>
*/
#[JoinTable(name: 'friends')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'user_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[InverseJoinColumn(name: 'friend_user_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: 'User', inversedBy: 'friendsWithMe')]
private Collection $myFriends;
public function __construct() {
$this->friendsWithMe = new ArrayCollection();
$this->myFriends = new ArrayCollection();
}
// ...
}
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Generated MySQL Schema:
1 CREATE TABLE User (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE friends (
user_id INT NOT NULL,
friend_user_id INT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(user_id, friend_user_id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;
ALTER TABLE friends ADD FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES User(id);
ALTER TABLE friends ADD FOREIGN KEY (friend_user_id) REFERENCES User(id);
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Mapping Defaults
The @JoinColumn
and @JoinTable
definitions are usually optional and have
sensible default values. The defaults for a join column in a
one-to-one/many-to-one association is as follows:
name: "_id"
referencedColumnName: "id"
As an example, consider this mapping:
This is essentially the same as the following, more verbose, mapping:
The @JoinTable definition used for many-to-many mappings has similar defaults. As an example, consider this mapping:
This is essentially the same as the following, more verbose, mapping:
1 <?php
class User
{
// ...
/**
* Many Users have Many Groups.
* @var Collection<int, Group>
*/
#[JoinTable(name: 'User_Group')]
#[JoinColumn(name: 'user_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[InverseJoinColumn(name: 'group_id', referencedColumnName: 'id')]
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: Group::class)]
private Collection $groups;
// ...
}
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In that case, the name of the join table defaults to a combination of the simple, unqualified class names of the participating classes, separated by an underscore character. The names of the join columns default to the simple, unqualified class name of the targeted class followed by "_id". The referencedColumnName always defaults to "id", just as in one-to-one or many-to-one mappings.
Additionally, when using typed properties with Doctrine 2.9 or newer
you can skip targetEntity
in ManyToOne
and OneToOne
associations as they will be set based on type. Also nullable
attribute on JoinColumn
will be inherited from PHP type. So that:
Is essentially the same as following:
If you accept these defaults, you can reduce the mapping code to a minimum.
Collections
Unfortunately, PHP arrays, while being great for many things, are missing
features that make them suitable for lazy loading in the context of an ORM.
This is why in all the examples of many-valued associations in this manual we
will make use of a Collection
interface and its
default implementation ArrayCollection
that are both defined in the
Doctrine\Common\Collections
namespace. A collection implements
the PHP interfaces ArrayAccess
, Traversable
and Countable
.
The Collection interface and ArrayCollection class, like everything else in the Doctrine namespace, are neither part of the ORM, nor the DBAL, it is a plain PHP class that has no outside dependencies apart from dependencies on PHP itself (and the SPL). Therefore using this class in your model and elsewhere does not introduce a coupling to the ORM. |
Initializing Collections
You should always initialize the collections of your @OneToMany
and @ManyToMany
associations in the constructor of your entities:
1 <?php
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
#[Entity]
class User
{
/** Many Users have Many Groups. */
#[ManyToMany(targetEntity: Group::class)]
private Collection $groups;
public function __construct()
{
$this->groups = new ArrayCollection();
}
public function getGroups(): Collection
{
return $this->groups;
}
}
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The following code will then work even if the Entity hasn't been associated with an EntityManager yet: