Persisting an entity with a ManyToOne relation does not convert related entity as IRI

[jmfeurprier]

We have the following entity classes:

<?php

namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Mapado\RestClientSdk\Mapping\Annotations as Rest;

/**
 * @Rest\Entity(key="articles")
 */
class Article
{
    /**
     * @Rest\Id
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="id", type="string")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @Rest\ManyToOne(name="section", targetEntity="Section")
     */
    private $section;

    public function setId($id)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
    }

    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function setSection(Section $section)
    {
        $this->section = $section;
    }

    public function getSection()
    {
        return $this->section;
    }
}

and

<?php

namespace AppBundle\Entity;

use Mapado\RestClientSdk\Mapping\Annotations as Rest;

/**
 * @Rest\Entity(key="sections")
 */
class Section
{
    /**
     * @Rest\Id
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="id", type="string")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @var string
     *
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="title", type="string")
     */
    private $title;

    public function setId($id)
    {
        $this->id = $id;
    }

    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function setTitle($title)
    {
        $this->title = $title;
    }

    public function getTitle()
    {
        return $this->title;
    }
}

When we persist an entity like this:

// $section is a valid and existing entity fetched from the API.

$article = new Article();
$article->setSection($section);

$articleRepository = $sdk->getRepository('articles');
$articleRepository->persist($article);

Then the HTTP call to the API is like this:

Path: POST http://domain.tld/articles

Parameters: { "json": { "section": "946c3a2a-e36a-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002", "title": "test" }, "version": "1.0", "headers": { "Accept-Language": "en-US,en;q=0.5" } } 

Notice how the "section" key is "946c3a2a-e36a-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002" instead of "/sections/946c3a2a-e36a-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002"

I think the fix could be to modify the Serializer::recursiveSerialize method, around line 189, by replacing:

if ($data->getId()) {
    $data = $data->getId();
} elseif (...) {

with:

if ($data->getId()) {
    $hydrator = $this->sdk->getModelHydrator();
    $data = $hydrator->convertId($data->getId(), $relation->getTargetEntity());
} elseif (...) {

[jdeniau]

Well that's weird because a call to $section->getId () should return the full path, especially after fetching it from your API.

Do your API return /sections/xxxxx or just xxxx?

If it does not return the full URL then I understand the problem and your solution may be the right one.
I will thing about until Monday and make a fix.

Thanks again for your reports!

[jmfeurprier]

Our entities do return "xxxxx" as we map the $id properties like this :

    /**
     * @Rest\Id
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="id", type="string")
     */
    private $id;

And here's a sample response from the API:

{
  "@context": "/contexts/Article",
  "@id": "/articles",
  "@type": "hydra:Collection",
  "hydra:member": [
    {
      "@id": "/articles/052113b4-e3b2-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002",
      "@type": "Article",
      "section": "/sections/d1e8b93e-e3b1-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002",
      "title": "test",
      "id": "052113b4-e3b2-11e6-b8b0-0242ac110002"
    }
}

We tried mapping the "@id" property from the API to have "/articles/xxxxx" but we had a lot of issues after, maybe we should retry with the recent fixes.

[jdeniau]

OK.

At Mapado we map @id and it's fine for us but your use case is interesting!

I'll try to fix it soon.

[jmfeurprier]

Ok !

Just for information, we have control on the API, which is a Symfony API Platform application (https://github.com/api-platform/api-platform).

On a previous project, we used Symfony + API bundle (preliminary version of API Platform) and we also had the same id/@id output in the API responses.

[jdeniau]

Your point is very interesting.

As a matter of fact, I think the id you use is not the real identifier, which is the iri (we should probably have named it Iri instead of Id everywhere :/ ).

It pointed a thing that I wanted to fix for a long time: the fact the the attribute id may not be the identifier.

Will it be OK for you to have something like this:

/**
 * @Rest\Entity(key="sections")
 */
class Section
{
    /**
     * @Rest\Id
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="@id", type="string")
     */
    private $iri;

    /**
     * @Rest\Attribute(name="id", type="string")
     */
    private $id;
}

This way, you keep your id everywhere, but the sdk will use the @Rest\Id which will be the iri in your case ?
I am working on removing all calls to getId in parallel.

(Just for the record we came from dunglas api-platform too, with only @id (no id), but we moved out for FOS Rest ;) )

[jmfeurprier]

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

Just before we go ahead with trying this, can you confirm you suggest adding the annotation "@rest\Id" on both property, or is it a copy-paste mistake?

[jdeniau]

Sorry, copy paste mistake, fixed in the previous comment ;)

It will only work with #47 merged, but you can try it for now by requiring dev-fixRemoveGetId@dev branch.

If you can confirm it's OK.

[jmfeurprier]

Excellent ! We will spend some time today to try it, stay tuned.

[jmfeurprier]

So far so good !

Retrieval, creation, updates and relations seem to be working as expected now with both IRI and Id fields.

Thanks a lot / gros merci !

[jdeniau]

fixed in v0.18.3