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UniqueEntity

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UniqueEntity¶

Validates that a particular field (or fields) in a Doctrine entity is (are) unique. This is commonly used, for example, to prevent a new user to register using an email address that already exists in the system.

Applies to	class
Options	fields message em repositoryMethod errorPath ignoreNull
Class	`UniqueEntity`
Validator	`UniqueEntityValidator`

Basic Usage¶

Suppose you have an AcmeUserBundle bundle with a User entity that has an email field. You can use the UniqueEntity constraint to guarantee that the email field remains unique between all of the constraints in your user table:

YAML

# src/Acme/UserBundle/Resources/config/validation.yml
Acme\UserBundle\Entity\Author:
    constraints:
        - Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity: email
    properties:
        email:
            - Email: ~

Annotations

// Acme/UserBundle/Entity/User.php
namespace Acme\UserBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

// DON'T forget this use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @UniqueEntity("email")
 */
class Author
{
    /**
     * @var string $email
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="email", type="string", length=255, unique=true)
     * @Assert\Email()
     */
    protected $email;

    // ...
}

XML

<!-- src/Acme/AdministrationBundle/Resources/config/validation.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">

    <class name="Acme\UserBundle\Entity\Author">
        <constraint name="Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity">
            <option name="fields">email</option>
            <option name="message">This email already exists.</option>
        </constraint>
        <property name="email">
            <constraint name="Email" />
        </property>
    </class>
</constraint-mapping>

PHP

// Acme/UserBundle/Entity/User.php
namespace Acme\UserBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;

// DON'T forget this use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;

class Author
{
    public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
    {
        $metadata->addConstraint(new UniqueEntity(array(
            'fields'  => 'email',
            'message' => 'This email already exists.',
        )));

        $metadata->addPropertyConstraint('email', new Assert\Email());
    }
}

Options¶

fields¶

type: array | string [default option]

This required option is the field (or list of fields) on which this entity should be unique. For example, if you specified both the email and name field in a single UniqueEntity constraint, then it would enforce that the combination value where unique (e.g. two users could have the same email, as long as they don't have the same name also).

If you need to require two fields to be individually unique (e.g. a unique email and a unique username), you use two UniqueEntity entries, each with a single field.

message¶

type: string default: This value is already used.

The message that's displayed when this constraint fails.

em¶

type: string

The name of the entity manager to use for making the query to determine the uniqueness. If it's left blank, the correct entity manager will determined for this class. For that reason, this option should probably not need to be used.

repositoryMethod¶

type: string default: findBy

New in version 2.1: The repositoryMethod option was added in Symfony 2.1. Before, it always used the findBy method.

The name of the repository method to use for making the query to determine the uniqueness. If it's left blank, the findBy method will be used. This method should return a countable result.

errorPath¶

type: string default: The name of the first field in fields

New in version 2.1: The errorPath option was added in Symfony 2.1.

If the entity violates the constraint the error message is bound to the first field in fields. If there is more than one field, you may want to map the error message to another field.

Consider this example:

YAML

# src/Acme/AdministrationBundle/Resources/config/validation.yml
Acme\AdministrationBundle\Entity\Service:
    constraints:
        - Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity:
            fields: [host, port]
            errorPath: port
            message: 'This port is already in use on that host.'

Annotations

// src/Acme/AdministrationBundle/Entity/Service.php
namespace Acme\AdministrationBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @UniqueEntity(
 *     fields={"host", "port"},
 *     errorPath="port",
 *     message="This port is already in use on that host."
 * )
 */
class Service
{
    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Host")
     */
    public $host;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    public $port;
}

XML

<!-- src/Acme/AdministrationBundle/Resources/config/validation.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<constraint-mapping xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping http://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">

    <class name="Acme\AdministrationBundle\Entity\Service">
        <constraint name="Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity">
            <option name="field">
                <value>host</value>
                <value>port</value>
            </option>
            <option name="errorPath">port</option>
            <option name="message">This port is already in use on that host.</option>
        </constraint>
    </class>

</constraint-mapping>

PHP

// src/Acme/AdministrationBundle/Entity/Service.php
namespace Acme\AdministrationBundle\Entity;

use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;

class Service
{
    public $host;
    public $port;

    public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
    {
        $metadata->addConstraint(new UniqueEntity(array(
            'fields'    => array('host', 'port'),
            'errorPath' => 'port',
            'message'   => 'This port is already in use on that host.',
        )));
    }
}

Now, the message would be bound to the port field with this configuration.

ignoreNull¶

type: Boolean default: true

New in version 2.1: The ignoreNull option was added in Symfony 2.1.

If this option is set to true, then the constraint will allow multiple entities to have a null value for a field without failing validation. If set to false, only one null value is allowed - if a second entity also has a null value, validation would fail.

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.