Setup and Configuration¶

If you don't have the Doctrine Data Fixtures library configured with Symfony2 yet, follow these steps to do so.

If you're using the Standard Distribution, add the following to your deps file:

[doctrine-fixtures]
    git=http://github.com/doctrine/data-fixtures.git

[DoctrineFixturesBundle]
    git=http://github.com/symfony/DoctrineFixturesBundle.git
    target=/bundles/Symfony/Bundle/DoctrineFixturesBundle

Update the vendor libraries:

$ php bin/vendors install

If everything worked, the doctrine-fixtures library can now be found at vendor/doctrine-fixtures.

Register the Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures namespace in app/autoload.php.

// ...
$loader->registerNamespaces(array(
    // ...
    'Doctrine\\Common\\DataFixtures' => __DIR__.'/../vendor/doctrine-fixtures/lib',
    'Doctrine\\Common' => __DIR__.'/../vendor/doctrine-common/lib',
    // ...
));

Finally, register the Bundle DoctrineFixturesBundle in app/AppKernel.php.

// ...
public function registerBundles()
{
    $bundles = array(
        // ...
        new Symfony\Bundle\DoctrineFixturesBundle\DoctrineFixturesBundle(),
        // ...
    );
    // ...
}

Writing Simple Fixtures¶

Doctrine2 fixtures are PHP classes where you can create objects and persist them to the database. Like all classes in Symfony2, fixtures should live inside one of your application bundles.

For a bundle located at src/Acme/HelloBundle, the fixture classes should live inside src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM or src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/MongoDB respectively for the ORM and ODM, This tutorial assumes that you are using the ORM - but fixtures can be added just as easily if you're using the ODM.

Imagine that you have a User class, and you'd like to load one User entry:

// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/LoadUserData.php
namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\FixtureInterface;
use Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\User;

class LoadUserData implements FixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $userAdmin = new User();
        $userAdmin->setUsername('admin');
        $userAdmin->setPassword('test');

        $manager->persist($userAdmin);
        $manager->flush();
    }
}

In Doctrine2, fixtures are just objects where you load data by interacting with your entities as you normally do. This allows you to create the exact fixtures you need for your application.

The most serious limitation is that you cannot share objects between fixtures. Later, you'll see how to overcome this limitation.

Executing Fixtures¶

Once your fixtures have been written, you can load them via the command line by using the doctrine:fixtures:load command:

php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load

If you're using the ODM, use the doctrine:mongodb:fixtures:load command instead:

php app/console doctrine:mongodb:fixtures:load

The task will look inside the DataFixtures/ORM (or DataFixtures/MongoDB for the ODM) directory of each bundle and execute each class that implements the FixtureInterface.

Both commands come with a few options:

• --fixtures=/path/to/fixture - Use this option to manually specify the directory where the fixtures classes should be loaded;
• --append - Use this flag to append data instead of deleting data before loading it (deleting first is the default behavior);
• --em=manager_name - Manually specify the entity manager to use for loading the data.

A full example use might look like this:

php app/console doctrine:fixtures:load --fixtures=/path/to/fixture1 --fixtures=/path/to/fixture2 --append --em=foo_manager

Sharing Objects between Fixtures¶

Writing a basic fixture is simple. But what if you have multiple fixture classes and want to be able to refer to the data loaded in other fixture classes? For example, what if you load a User object in one fixture, and then want to refer to reference it in a different fixture in order to assign that user to a particular group?

The Doctrine fixtures library handles this easily by allowing you to specify the order in which fixtures are loaded.

// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/LoadUserData.php
namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\User;

class LoadUserData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $userAdmin = new User();
        $userAdmin->setUsername('admin');
        $userAdmin->setPassword('test');

        $manager->persist($userAdmin);
        $manager->flush();

        $this->addReference('admin-user', $userAdmin);
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 1; // the order in which fixtures will be loaded
    }
}

The fixture class now implements OrderedFixtureInterface, which tells Doctrine that you want to control the order of your fixtures. Create another fixture class and make it load after LoadUserData by returning an order of 2:

// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/LoadGroupData.php
namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\Group;

class LoadGroupData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $groupAdmin = new Group();
        $groupAdmin->setGroupName('admin');

        $manager->persist($groupAdmin);
        $manager->flush();

        $this->addReference('admin-group', $groupAdmin);
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 2; // the order in which fixtures will be loaded
    }
}

Both of the fixture classes extend AbstractFixture, which allows you to create objects and then set them as references so that they can be used later in other fixtures. For example, the $userAdmin and $groupAdmin objects can be referenced later via the admin-user and admin-group references:

// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/LoadUserGroupData.php
namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\UserGroup;

class LoadUserGroupData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $userGroupAdmin = new UserGroup();
        $userGroupAdmin->setUser($manager->merge($this->getReference('admin-user')));
        $userGroupAdmin->setGroup($manager->merge($this->getReference('admin-group')));

        $manager->persist($userGroupAdmin);
        $manager->flush();
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 3;
    }
}

The fixtures will now be executed in the ascending order of the value returned by getOrder(). Any object that is set with the setReference() method can be accessed via getReference() in fixture classes that have a higher order.

Fixtures allow you to create any type of data you need via the normal PHP interface for creating and persisting objects. By controlling the order of fixtures and setting references, almost anything can be handled by fixtures.

Using the Container in the Fixtures¶

In some cases you may need to access some services to load the fixtures. Symfony2 makes it really easy: the container will be injected in all fixture classes implementing ContainerAwareInterface.

Let's rewrite the first fixture to encode the password before it's stored in the database (a very good practice). This will use the encoder factory to encode the password, ensuring it is encoded in the way used by the security component when checking it:

// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/LoadUserData.php
namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\FixtureInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerAwareInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;
use Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\User;

class LoadUserData implements FixtureInterface, ContainerAwareInterface
{
    private $container;

    public function setContainer(ContainerInterface $container = null)
    {
        $this->container = $container;
    }

    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $userAdmin = new User();
        $userAdmin->setUsername('admin');
        $userAdmin->setSalt(md5(time()));

        $encoder = $this->container->get('security.encoder_factory')->getEncoder($userAdmin);
        $userAdmin->setPassword($encoder->encodePassword('test', $userAdmin->getSalt()));

        $manager->persist($userAdmin);
        $manager->flush();
    }
}

As you can see, all you need to do is add ContainerAwareInterface to the class and then create a new setContainer() method that implements that interface. Before the fixture is executed, Symfony will call the setContainer() method automatically. As long as you store the container as a property on the class (as shown above), you can access it in the load() method.