How to Create custom Repository Classes

Constructing and using complex queries inside controllers complicate the maintenance of your application. In order to isolate, reuse and test these queries, it's a good practice to create a custom repository class for your entity. Methods containing your query logic can then be stored in this class.

To do this, add the repository class name to your entity's mapping definition:

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// src/AppBundle/Entity/Product.php
namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="AppBundle\Repository\ProductRepository")
 */
class Product
{
    // ...
}

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# src/AppBundle/Resources/config/doctrine/Product.orm.yml
AppBundle\Entity\Product:
    type: entity
    repositoryClass: AppBundle\Repository\ProductRepository
    # ...

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<!-- src/AppBundle/Resources/config/doctrine/Product.orm.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<doctrine-mapping xmlns="http://doctrine-project.org/schemas/orm/doctrine-mapping"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://doctrine-project.org/schemas/orm/doctrine-mapping
        https://doctrine-project.org/schemas/orm/doctrine-mapping.xsd">

    <entity
        name="AppBundle\Entity\Product"
        repository-class="AppBundle\Repository\ProductRepository">

        <!-- ... -->
    </entity>
</doctrine-mapping>

Then, create an empty AppBundle\Repository\ProductRepository class extending from Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository.

Next, add a new method - findAllOrderedByName() - to the newly-generated ProductRepository class. This method will query for all the Product entities, ordered alphabetically by name:

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// src/AppBundle/Repository/ProductRepository.php
namespace AppBundle\Repository;

use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;

class ProductRepository extends EntityRepository
{
    public function findAllOrderedByName()
    {
        return $this->getEntityManager()
            ->createQuery(
                'SELECT p FROM AppBundle:Product p ORDER BY p.name ASC'
            )
            ->getResult();
    }
}

You can use this new method just like the default finder methods of the repository:

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use AppBundle\Entity\Product;
// ...

public function listAction()
{
    $products = $this->getDoctrine()
        ->getRepository(Product::class)
        ->findAllOrderedByName();
}