Persist Doctrine ArrayCollection with only strings to MySQL database

Question

I'm persisting a field of type ArrayCollection to a MySQL database which contains only stings. The database field is of type "array" in the ORM definition and of type TEXT in the database.

/**
 * @var ArrayCollection
 *
 * @ORM\Column(name="currencies", type="array")
 */
private $currencies;

When persisted it looks like this in the database:

O:43:"Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection":1:{s:54:"Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection_elements";a:3:{i:0;s:3:"EUR";i:1;s:3:"USD";i:2;s:3:"GBP";}}

Is there a way to get something more close to a json array into the database? Something like this:

['EUR', 'USD', 'GBP']

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '14 at 15:15

1

Why are you setting an ArrayCollection to your $currencies property ? Why don't you use an array ?

You may also use the "json_array" Doctrine type instead of "array".

answered Sep 25 '14 at 15:15

Yann Eugoné

1,311
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Why would you ever use a ArrayCollection instead of an array? Because it's easier to handle. json_array as a type works. – Christian Kolb Sep 25 '14 at 15:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

0

Doctrine uses the PHP function serialize() when inserting into the database.

Upon fetching, it uses deserialize().

You can simply use: echo json_encode($entity->getCurrencies());.

See also this question: How to encode Doctrine entities to JSON in Symfony 2.0 AJAX application?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

Community

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1

answered Sep 25 '14 at 15:22

Daniel W.

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I want to have it saved in the database in a more cleaner way, the output is no problem. – Christian Kolb Sep 25 '14 at 15:42

Persist Doctrine ArrayCollection with only strings to MySQL database

2 Answers2