The ORM provides the ability to reference to objects that are not currently loaded from the database. This can be achieved using main abstraction: Reference.
References provide the ability to replace an actual entity with a Reference object which points to the entity's role and
it's scope (columns used for relations). In some cases, like in relations belongsTo and refersTo, the object would
not be fetched from the database and the manually specified scope will be used.
We can demonstrate it:
#[Entity]
class Post
{
#[Column(type: 'primary')]
private int $id;
#[BelongsTo(target: User::class)]
private $user;
}
Now, if we want to create a new Post entity we have an option to set the user value as a User entity or use a
reference instead:
$post = new Post();
$post->user = new \Cycle\ORM\Reference\Reference('user', ['id' => 1]);
$manager = new \Cycle\ORM\EntityManager($orm);
$manager->persist($post)->run();
You must use entity role in reference.
If you use references often it might be convenient to create custom object for such purpose:
use Cycle\ORM\Reference\ReferenceInterface;
class UserID implements ReferenceInterface
{
public function __construct(
private int $id
) {
}
public function getRole(): string
{
return 'user';
}
public function getScope(): array
{
return ['id' => $this->id];
}
}
And use it accordingly:
$post = new Post();
$post->user = new UserID(1);
$manager = new \Cycle\ORM\EntityManager($orm);
$manager->persist($post)->run();