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.
See also
If you want to validate that all the elements of the collection are unique use the Unique constraint.
Note
In order to use this constraint, you should have installed the symfony/doctrine-bridge with Composer.
Applies to | class |
Class | UniqueEntity |
Validator | UniqueEntityValidator |
Basic Usage
Suppose you have 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 rows in your user table:
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// src/Entity/User.php
namespace App\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
// DON'T forget the following use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
/**
* @ORM\Entity
* @UniqueEntity("email")
*/
class User
{
/**
* @ORM\Column(name="email", type="string", length=255, unique=true)
* @Assert\Email
*/
protected $email;
}
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// src/Entity/User.php
namespace App\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
// DON'T forget the following use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
#[ORM\Entity]
#[UniqueEntity('email')]
class User
{
#[ORM\Column(name: 'email', type: 'string', length: 255, unique: true)]
#[Assert\Email]
protected $email;
}
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# config/validator/validation.yaml
App\Entity\User:
constraints:
- Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity: email
properties:
email:
- Email: ~
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<!-- config/validator/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 https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">
<class name="App\Entity\User">
<constraint name="Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity">
<option name="fields">email</option>
</constraint>
<property name="email">
<constraint name="Email"/>
</property>
</class>
</constraint-mapping>
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// src/Entity/User.php
namespace App\Entity;
// DON'T forget the following use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
class User
{
public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
{
$metadata->addConstraint(new UniqueEntity([
'fields' => 'email',
]));
$metadata->addPropertyConstraint('email', new Assert\Email());
}
}
// src/Form/Type/UserType.php
namespace App\Form\Type;
// ...
// DON'T forget the following use statement!!!
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
class UserType extends AbstractType
{
// ...
public function configureOptions(OptionsResolver $resolver): void
{
$resolver->setDefaults([
// ...
'data_class' => User::class,
'constraints' => [
new UniqueEntity(fields: ['email']),
],
]);
}
}
Caution
This constraint doesn't provide any protection against race conditions. They may occur when another entity is persisted by an external process after this validation has passed and before this entity is actually persisted in the database.
Caution
This constraint cannot deal with duplicates found in a collection of items that haven't been persisted as entities yet. You'll need to create your own validator to handle that case.
Options
em
type: string
default: null
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 be determined for this class. For that reason, this option should probably not need to be used.
entityClass
type: string
default: null
By default, the query performed to ensure the uniqueness uses the repository of the current class instance. However, in some cases, such as when using Doctrine inheritance mapping, you need to execute the query in a different repository. Use this option to define the fully-qualified class name (FQCN) of the Doctrine entity associated with the repository you want to use.
errorPath
type: string
default: The name of the first field in fields
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:
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// src/Entity/Service.php
namespace App\Entity;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
/**
* @ORM\Entity
* @UniqueEntity(
* fields={"host", "port"},
* message="This port is already in use on that host.",
* errorPath="port"
* )
*/
class Service
{
/**
* @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="App\Entity\Host")
*/
public $host;
/**
* @ORM\Column(type="integer")
*/
public $port;
}
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// src/Entity/Service.php
namespace App\Entity;
use App\Entity\Host;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
#[ORM\Entity]
#[UniqueEntity(
fields: ['host', 'port'],
message: 'This port is already in use on that host.',
errorPath: 'port',
)]
class Service
{
#[ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity: Host::class)]
public $host;
#[ORM\Column(type: 'integer')]
public $port;
}
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# config/validator/validation.yaml
App\Entity\Service:
constraints:
- Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity:
fields: [host, port]
message: 'This port is already in use on that host.'
errorPath: port
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<!-- config/validator/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 https://symfony.com/schema/dic/constraint-mapping/constraint-mapping-1.0.xsd">
<class name="App\Entity\Service">
<constraint name="Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity">
<option name="fields">
<value>host</value>
<value>port</value>
</option>
<option name="message">This port is already in use on that host.</option>
<option name="errorPath">port</option>
</constraint>
</class>
</constraint-mapping>
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// src/Entity/Service.php
namespace App\Entity;
use Symfony\Bridge\Doctrine\Validator\Constraints\UniqueEntity;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Mapping\ClassMetadata;
class Service
{
public $host;
public $port;
public static function loadValidatorMetadata(ClassMetadata $metadata)
{
$metadata->addConstraint(new UniqueEntity([
'fields' => ['host', 'port'],
'message' => 'This port is already in use on that host.',
'errorPath' => 'port',
]));
}
}
Now, the message would be bound to the port
field with this configuration.
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 is 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.
groups
type: array
| string
default: null
It defines the validation group or groups of this constraint. Read more about validation groups.
ignoreNull
type: boolean
default: true
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.
message
type: string
default: This value is already used.
The message that's displayed when this constraint fails. This message is by default mapped to the first field causing the violation. When using multiple fields in the constraint, the mapping can be specified via the errorPath property.
Messages can include the {{ value }}
placeholder to display a string
representation of the invalid entity. If the entity doesn't define the
__toString()
method, the following generic value will be used: "Object of
class __CLASS__ identified by <comma separated IDs>"
You can use the following parameters in this message:
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
{{ value }} |
The current (invalid) value |
{{ label }} |
Corresponding form field label |
5.2
The {{ label }}
parameter was introduced in Symfony 5.2.
payload
type: mixed
default: null
This option can be used to attach arbitrary domain-specific data to a constraint. The configured payload is not used by the Validator component, but its processing is completely up to you.
For example, you may want to use several error levels to present failed constraints differently in the front-end depending on the severity of the error.
repositoryMethod
type: string
default: findBy
The name of the repository method used to determine the uniqueness. If it's left
blank, findBy()
will be used. The method receives as its argument a
fieldName => value
associative array (where fieldName
is each of the
fields configured in the fields
option). The method should return a
countable PHP variable.