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08.

Raw SQL Queries

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All this Doctrine entity object stuff and DQL queries are really great. But if you ever feel overwhelmed with all of this or need write a really complex query, you can always fall back to using raw SQL. Seriously, this is huge. When Doctrine scares you, you are totally free to run away and use plain SQL. I won't judge you - just get that feature finished and launch it already. If a tool isn't helping you, don't use it.

Put on your DBA hat and let's write some SQL!

Open up FortuneCookieRepository. This is where we built a query that selected a sum, an average and the category name.

The DBAL Connection

The most important object in Doctrine is.... the entity manager! But that's just a puppet for the real guy in charge: the connection! Grab it by getting the entity manager and calling getConnection(). Let's var_dump() this:

32 lines | src/AppBundle/Entity/FortuneCookieRepository.php
// ... lines 1 - 14
public function countNumberPrintedForCategory(Category $category)
{
$conn = $this->getEntityManager()
->getConnection();
var_dump($conn);die;
// ... lines 21 - 28
}
// ... lines 30 - 32

Head to the browser and click into one of the category pages. There's our beautiful var_dump(). Hey! Look at the class name:

Doctrine\DBAL\Connection

Fun fact! The Doctrine library is actually multiple libraries put together. The two parts we care about are the ORM and the DBAL. The ORM is what does all the magic mapping of data onto objects. The DBAL - or database abstraction layer - can be used completely independent of the ORM. It's basically a wrapper around PDO. Said in a less boring way, it's a library for executing database queries.

So this DBAL Connection objects is our key to running raw database queries. Google for "Doctrine DBAL Query" so we can follow its docs. Find the Data Retrieval And Manipulaton section. Scroll down a little to a good example:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM articles WHERE id = ?";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindValue(1, $id);
$stmt->execute();

This DBAL library is a really light wrapper around PHP's PDO. So if you've used that before, you'll like this. But if not, it's like 3 steps, so stick with me.

Making a Raw SQL Query

Back in FortuneCookieRepository, let's write some simple SQL to test with:

SELECT * FROM fortune_cookie;

When you use the DBAL, there are no entities and it doesn't know about any of our Doctrine annotations. Yep, we're talking to the raw tables and columns. So I used fortune_cookies because that's the name of the actual table in the database.

Next, we'll use the SQL to get a statement. So:

$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);

And then we can execute() that, which runs the query but doesn't give you the result. To get that, call $stmt->fetchAll() and var_dump() that:

35 lines | src/AppBundle/Entity/FortuneCookieRepository.php
// ... lines 1 - 14
public function countNumberPrintedForCategory(Category $category)
{
$conn = $this->getEntityManager()
->getConnection();
$sql = 'SELECT * FROM fortune_cookie';
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute();
var_dump($stmt->fetchAll());die;
// ... lines 24 - 31
}
// ... lines 33 - 35

Try it! And there it is: exactly what you'd expect with no effort at all. It's literally the results - in array format - from the raw SQL query. Doctrine isn't trying to hide this feature from you - just grab the Connection object and you're dangerous.

Prepared Statements

The query we made with the query builder is a bit more complex. Could we replacle that with raw SQL? Sure! Well there's not really a good reason to do this, since it's built and working. But let's prove we can do it!

Let's grab the "select" part of the query and stick that in our query. I hate long lines, so let's use multiple. Piece by piece, add the other query parts. The FROM is fortune_cookie fc. Add the INNER JOIN to category ON cat.id = fc.category_id. And since we're in DBAL land, we don't have any of our annotation mapping configuration, so we have to tell it exactly how to join - it's just raw SQL. And for the same reason, we're using the real column names, like category_id.

Add a single WHERE of fc.category_id = :category. That's some good-old-fashioned boring SQL. I love it! The only thing we still need to do is fill in the :category placeholder. Even though we're using the DBAL, we still don't concatenate strings in our queries, unless you love SQL attacks or prefer to live dangerously. Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Ahem. To give :category a value, just pass an array to execute() and pass it a category key assigned to the id. Ok, done! Let's dump this!

40 lines | src/AppBundle/Entity/FortuneCookieRepository.php
// ... lines 1 - 14
public function countNumberPrintedForCategory(Category $category)
{
$conn = $this->getEntityManager()
->getConnection();
$sql = '
SELECT SUM(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesPrinted, AVG(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesAverage, cat.name
FROM fortune_cookie fc
INNER JOIN category cat ON cat.id = fc.category_id
WHERE fc.category_id = :category
';
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array('category' => $category->getId()));
var_dump($stmt->fetchAll());die;
// ... lines 29 - 36
}
// ... lines 38 - 40

Boom! That's exactly what I was hoping for.

Using fetch() to get back the First Row

Since our SQL gives us just one row, it'd be awesome to get just its columns, instead of an array with one result. Just use fetch()!

40 lines | src/AppBundle/Entity/FortuneCookieRepository.php
// ... lines 1 - 14
public function countNumberPrintedForCategory(Category $category)
{
$conn = $this->getEntityManager()
->getConnection();
$sql = '
SELECT SUM(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesPrinted, AVG(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesAverage, cat.name
FROM fortune_cookie fc
INNER JOIN category cat ON cat.id = fc.category_id
WHERE fc.category_id = :category
';
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array('category' => $category->getId()));
var_dump($stmt->fetch());die;
// ... lines 29 - 36
}
// ... lines 38 - 40

And now, this is exactly what our query builder gave us before. So get rid of the die() statement and return the fetch() line:

41 lines | src/AppBundle/Entity/FortuneCookieRepository.php
// ... lines 1 - 14
public function countNumberPrintedForCategory(Category $category)
{
$conn = $this->getEntityManager()
->getConnection();
$sql = '
SELECT SUM(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesPrinted, AVG(fc.numberPrinted) as fortunesAverage, cat.name
FROM fortune_cookie fc
INNER JOIN category cat ON cat.id = fc.category_id
WHERE fc.category_id = :category
';
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array('category' => $category->getId()));
return $stmt->fetch();
// ... lines 30 - 37
}
// ... lines 39 - 41

Just let the old code sit down there. Refresh! And we're prefectly back to normal. Man, that was kinda easy. So if Doctrine ever looks hard or you're still learning it, totally use SQL. It's no big deal.

Native Queries?

One slightly confusing thing is that if you google for "doctrine raw sql", you'll find a different solution - something called NativeQuery. It sort of looks the same, just with some different function names. But there's this ResultSetMapping thing. Huh. This NativeQuery thing allows you to run a raw SQL query and then map that back to an object. That's pretty neat I guess. But for me, if I'm writing some custom SQL, I'm fine just getting back an array of data. I can deal with that. The ResultSetMapping confuses me, and probably isn't worth the effort. But it's there if you want to geek out on it.