Query a ManyToMany relation and display the good result in Symfony with Doctrine

Question

in order to know how it really works, there is an unanswered question from Stack website, and notice that I have the similar problem.

In my SQl database, I have two tables: Adverts and Categories

Indeed, the Adverts table can contain MANY Categories, and of course a Category can be in many Adverts.

So I have a ManyToMany relation between the two tables. in SQL, Doctrine creates me a pivot table named adverts_categories. So far there are no problems , everything is theoretically correct.

So, in my SQl database, I have three tables: adverts, adverts_categories and categories like this:

    adverts
+-------------+--------------+
| id          | int(11)      |
| ...         | ...          |
+-------------+--------------+

    adverts_categories 
+---------------+--------------+
| adverts_id    | int(11)      |
| categories_id | int(11)      |
+---------------+--------------+

    categories
+-------------+-------------+
| id          | int(11)     |
| ...         | ...         |
+-------------+-------------+

And in my Symfony project, in my entity folder I have just the two entities name Adverts.php and Categories.php, which is theoretically correct for now too.

Here's the code for Adverts.php:

class Adverts
{
     /**
     * @var integer
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer", nullable=false)
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="IDENTITY")
     */
    private $id;

 /**
 * @var \Users
 *
 * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Users")
 * @ORM\JoinColumns({
 *   @ORM\JoinColumn(name="users_id", referencedColumnName="id")
 * })
 */
private $users;

     /**
     * @var \Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Categories", inversedBy="adverts")
     * @ORM\JoinTable(name="adverts_categories",
     *   joinColumns={
     *     @ORM\JoinColumn(name="adverts_id", referencedColumnName="id")
     *   },
     *   inverseJoinColumns={
     *     @ORM\JoinColumn(name="categories_id", referencedColumnName="id")
     *   }
     * )
     */
    private $categories;

And here's the code for Categories.php: class Categories

{
     /**
     * @var integer
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer", nullable=false)
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="IDENTITY")
     */
    private $id;

     /**
     * @var \Doctrine\Common\Collections\Collection
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Adverts", mappedBy="categories")
     */
    private $adverts;

So now, when I try to make a query in order to have the results of this request an error occured. Here's the code in my controller:

public function indexAdvertsAction() {

        $em=$this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $advert= $em->getRepository('MySpaceMyBundle:Adverts');

$queryAdverts = $em->createQuery('SELECT a
                                    FROM MySpaceMyBundle:Adverts a, MySpaceMyBundle:Users u, MySpaceMyBundle:Categories c
                                    WHERE a.categories = c.id
                                    AND a.users = a.id ');

$advert= $queryAdverts->getResult();

        return $this->render('MySpaceMyBundle:MyFolder:indexAdverts.html.twig', array('advert' => $advert ));
    }

The error is:

[Semantical Error] line ..., col ... near 'categories': Error: Invalid PathExpression. StateFieldPathExpression or SingleValuedAssociationField expected.

I really don't understand. Someone could help?

---

UPADTE

if it could help for searching an answer, I would like to display all the result in a in my twig indexAdverts.html.twig, here's the code:

{% for adverts in advert%}
   <tr>
       <td>{{ adverts.id }}</td>
       <td>{{ adverts.name }}</td>
       <td>{{ adverts.users }}</td>
       <td>{{ adverts.categories }}</td>
       <td><a href="{{ path('editAdverts', {'name': adverts.name}) }}"><button class="btn btn-warning btn-xs">Edit</button></a></td>
   </tr>
{% endfor %}

Answer 1

You shouldn't use DQL or others direct queries in your controllers if not really necessary. You should do this:

public function indexAdvertsAction() {
    $em=$this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
    $adverts = $em->getRepository('MySpaceMyBundle:Adverts')->findAll();

    return $this->render(
         'MySpaceMyBundle:MyFolder:indexAdverts.html.twig',
         array('adverts' => $adverts )
    );
}

Then, in your template, the advert entity will take care of the rest, thanks to the correct relations mapping:

{% for adverts in advert%}
   <tr>
       <td>{{ adverts.id }}</td>
       <td>{{ adverts.name }}</td>
       <td>{{ adverts.users }}</td>
       <td>
           {% for category in adverts.categories %}
               {{ adverts.categories }}
           {% endfor %}
       </td>
       <td>
           <a href="{{ path('editAdverts', {'name': adverts.name}) }}"><button class="btn btn-warning btn-xs">Edit</button></a>
       </td>
   </tr>
{% endfor %}

Answer 2

WHERE a.categories = c.id

This line should cause the error. I think in your case, you should use a.categories.id instead of a.categories. You can't equalize an object with an integer.