Doctrine ORM ItemProvider does not allow array result (mixed query result)

[rdavaillaud]

API Platform version(s) affected: 4.1

Description

It is not possible to return a mixed result (array with object and scalar) in the Doctrine Orm ItemProvider.
The current signature allow only null or object to be returned.

public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): ?object

How to reproduce
Add to the queryBuilder a scalar value to select along the entity in order to make Doctrine return a mixed result.

Possible Solution
Change the return signature like the following.

public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): null|array|object

[soyuka]

#7083

[rdavaillaud]

@soyuka the previous PR did not fix this issue, only add more info for Stan and Psalm.

PR #7091 actually fix it in code.

[soyuka]

I'm not sure we should allow such a thing a provider can return either an object or some collection of objects therefore I'm not sure about the real world use case could you give me an example?

[rdavaillaud]

In my database I've got two tables, let's call them
article(id, journal_id, journal_article_id) (id is PK, and the two others forms a unique key) and interview(id, journal_id, journal_article_id), for some reason, they are linked by an arbitrary link, no real foreign key. So, no Doctrine attribute from one or the other to retrieve any 'soft' linked entity.

In my API, my endpoint articles returns a DTO ArticleDTO mapped (with Jolicode Automapper) from the Doctrine article entity. The DTO has an attribute bool $fromInterview which is true when an interview has been matched with.

In order to populate the DTO and its fromInterview attribute, I use a custom provider and the stateOptions entityClass option to use the Article Doctrine Provider with it.
An Doctrine Extension (QueryItemExtensionInterface) ArticleExtension add a select for the scalar value interviewId and the arbitrary join.

Here is a Gist with the classes

[rdavaillaud]

I think this is perfectly valid for the Doctrine point of view., and for APIP, it does not transgress the ProviderInterface contract.

Moreover, nothing prevent the use of Doctrine "mixed result" in the collection provider, hence my previous PR #7083

[soyuka]

Therefore you return either a DTO either a Paginator, not sure why you'd need an array.

[rdavaillaud]

After some chat with @soyuka we agreed that Doctrine "mixed result" should not be implemented by APIP, and that it is best to use a ResultSetMapper or directly a DTO with query builder "NEW" instruction.

For the same reason, PR #7083 was reverted.