issue about selecting objects in an inheritance context in propel-symfony

Question

Hi,
I have an issue that is quite annoying with symfony 1.2 and propel.
I have a model where I have implemented inheritance using the single-table strategy. So, here is an excerpt of my model:
Ad (id, posted_date, description) then RealEstateAd(location, price, transaction_type) and JobAd(position, requirements, company) which inherit both from Ad.

I would like to display all ads, but I would like to display a RealEstateAd differently from a JobAd. To achieve this, I've used a partial for a RealEstateAd and a partial for a JobAd.
So, in the action, I did this:

$c = new Criteria();  
$this->allAds = AdPeer::doSelect($c);

In the template, I check the class of each object:

$add = $allAds[$i];
if ($add instanceof RealEstateAdd)
  //Use the RealEstatePartial

The problem is that class of an object in the $allAds array is sfOutputEscaperObjectDecorator. So, nothing is displayed at all.

How could I deal with this issue? is there a way to get an array with objects which are actually of the class RealEstateAd or JobAd? How is the hydrating process carried out here?

Answer 1

I don't know much about symfony or propel, so if i'm way off base here i apologize and just ignore this post...

What if you create a helper function getAdType() that uses some methodology to distinguish between the different types of ads.

function getAdType( $ad ) {

    if ( isset( $ad->position ) ) {
        return 'job';
    }
    elseif ( isset( $ad->transaction_type ) ) {
        return 'realestate';
    }

}

---

$add = $allAds[$i];
if ( getAdType( $add ) == 'realestate' )
    //Use the RealEstatePartial

Answer 2

Hi there,

I might be misunderstanding something, but unless you have overloaded AdPeer::doSelect(), then it will only return an array of instance of Ad.

If you were to post your schema, it would be easier for me or others to help as it is not really clear how you've built your object model. Is RealEstateAd a propel class defined in schema.yml? or is it a custom class you've added to lib?

Eitherway, AdPeer::doSelect* will only return Ad, so it sounds like what you need is a custom retriever in the AdPeer. Again, more info about your schema will help.

Answer 3

sfOutputEscaperObjectDecorator has a raw method to get the undelying object.

Anyway, the best thing you can do is to have three different classes (i assume that real estates and job ads are Models)

class Ad { public function __toString() { print 'ad'; } } 

class RealEstates extends Ad { public function __toString() { print 'realad'; } }

class JobAd extends Ad { public function __toString() { print 'jobad'; } }

so you can just call print $myAd; in your view without checking the object types. (use polymorphism luke)