How to set up entity (doctrine) for database view in Symfony 2

Question

Lets say i have a view table. And i want to get data from it to an entity. Can i (and how) create entity class to do that. (no save operation needed). I just want to display

Answer 1

Both the previous answers are correct, but if you use the doctrine migration tool and do a schema:update it will fail...

So, in addition to marking the entity as read only and making the constructor private (explained in Ian Phillips answer):

/**
 * @ORM\Entity(readOnly=true)
 * @ORM\Table(name="your_view_table")
 */
class YourEntity {
    private function __construct() {}
}

You would need to set the schema tool to ignore the entity when doing a schema:update...

In order to do that you just need to create this command in your bundle, and set yout entity in the ignoredEntity list:

src/Acme/CoreBundle/Command/DoctrineUpdateCommand.php:

getName(), $this->ignoredEntities)) {
        array_push($newMetadatas, $metadata);
      }
    }

    parent::executeSchemaCommand($input, $output, $schemaTool, $newMetadatas);
  }

}

(credit to Alexandru Trandafir Catalin: obtained from here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25948910/1442457)

BTW, this is the only way I found to work with views from doctrine... I know it is a workaround... If there is a better way I am open or suggestions)