07 March 2015—
Some time ago I published an article talking about different Doctrine configurations when using the DoctrineORMModule in Zend Framework 2 applications, so that you can create multiple database connections, either by using one entity manager or more than one.
Since then, many people have asked me how to configure the entity manager when the database connection configuration has to be generated dynamically, for example because you have more than one database and you need to choose one of them based on some external element.
I’m going to explain one possible approach to this problem.
Introduction
Let’s assume we have one default database with a couple tables, one users table which we will use to perform authentication, and another groups table that contains the name of the database for each one of those groups.
To access this database we are going to use the default EntityManager, with a configuration like this.
return [
'doctrine' => [
'connection' => [
'orm_default' => [
'driverClass' =>'Doctrine\DBAL\Driver\PDOMySql\Driver',
'params' => [
'host' => 'localhost',
'port' => '3306',
'user' => 'root',
'password' => 'foobar',
'dbname' => 'main_database',
'driverOptions' => [
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES utf8',
],
],
],
],
'driver' => [
'my_module_entities' => [
'class' =>'Doctrine\ORM\Mapping\Driver\AnnotationDriver',
'cache' => 'array',
'paths' => [
__DIR__ . '/../../module/MyModule/src/Entity',
]
],
'orm_default' => [
'drivers' => [
'MyModule\Entity' => 'my_module_entities',
]
],
],
'authentication' => [
// [...]
],
],
];With this configuration it is easy to get an EntityManager instance, just by fetching it from the ServiceManager with the key doctrine.entitymanager.orm_default.
But how do we configure an entity manager connection when we don’t know which is going to be the dbname?
Dynamically update configuration
The first thig we are going to do es to define another connection configuration but leaving the dbname empty.
return [
'doctrine' => [
'connection' => [
'orm_default' => [
// [...]
],
'dynamic_orm' => [
'driverClass' =>'Doctrine\DBAL\Driver\PDOMySql\Driver',
'params' => [
'host' => 'localhost',
'port' => '3306',
'user' => 'root',
'password' => 'foobar',
'dbname' => '',
'driverOptions' => [
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES utf8',
],
],
],
],
'driver' => [
'my_module_entities' => [
'class' =>'Doctrine\ORM\Mapping\Driver\AnnotationDriver',
'cache' => 'array',
'paths' => [
__DIR__ . '/../../module/MyModule/src/Entity',
]
],
'orm_default' => [
'drivers' => [
'MyModule\Entity' => 'my_module_entities',
]
],
// I'm using the same entities for this connection, but you could change this
'dynamic_orm' => [
'drivers' => [
'MyModule\Entity' => 'my_module_entities',
]
],
],
'authentication' => [
// [...]
],
'entitymanager' => [
'dynamic_orm' => [
'connection' => 'dynamic_orm',
],
],
],
];Now I’m going to define a custom factory that will get current user’s database name and update the configuration on the fly before creating the EntityManager.
namespace Acelaya\Blog\Service\Factory;
use Zend\ServiceManager\FactoryInterface;
use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceLocatorInterface;
class DynamicEMFactory implements FactoryInterface
{
public funciton createService(ServiceLocatorInterface $serviceLocator)
{
// Get current user
$authService = $serviceLocator->get('Zend\Authentication\AuthenticationService');
if (! $authService->hasIdentity()) {
throw new \RuntimeException(
'It is not possible to create a dynamic entity manager before a user has logged in'
);
}
$user = $authService->getIdentity();
$dbName = $user->getGroup()->getDbName();
// Update connection config
$globalConfig = $serviceLocator->get('config');
$globalConfig['doctrine']['connection']['dynamic_orm']['params']['dbname'] = $dbName;
$isAllowOverride = $serviceLocator->getAllowOverride();
$serviceLocator->setAllowOverride(true)
$serviceLocator->setService('config', $globalConfig);
$serviceLocator->setAllowOverride($isAllowOverride);
// Now that the service manager configuration is up to date, we can safely fetch the service
return $serviceLocator->get('doctrine.entitimanager.dynamic_orm');
}
}Let’s see what this factory does.
The first thing we do is to make sure that a user is logged in the system. In case it is not, we throw an exception. Usually, our ACL system will prevent any endpoint that depends on this dynamic EntityManager to be hit before that happens, but any unexpected error will be easier to debug this way.
Then we get the global configuration service, update the database name for the dynamic_orm and overwrite the updated configuration service.
We have to make sure that we are able to override services in the ServiceManager before doing it, because its default behavior is to throw an exception if we try to do that. Then we reset the ‘allow override’ state to its previous one, to prevent unexpected bugs.
Finally we use the DoctrineModule’s standard factories to create our EntityManager and return it. It should properly work, since the configuration is now complete.
The last thing to do would be to define a custom name for this service.
return [
'service_manager' => [
'factories' => [
'DynamicEntityManager' => 'Acelaya\Blog\Service\Factory\DynamicEMFactory'
]
]
];And that should be it. Once you fetch this service from the ServiceManager ($sm->get('DynamicEntityManager')), it will dynamically update the configuration and create the entity manager.
Conclusion
It is not hard to get this working, but we have had to bypass some of the default behaviors of Doctrine and Zend Framework 2, so you will need to be careful not to break anything.
For example, an error could happen if you access the doctrine.entitimanager.dynamic_orm service directly instead of using our factory.
It could also fail if in your case you don’t rely on a logged in user, but on something harder to control.
Also, I have assumed that the only thing that is dynamic is the database name. In case credentials or hosts could dynamically change too, you will need to have a helper table with conneciton configurations, or at least a configuration file where you can locate different connection configuraitons.