Writing custom loaders

This bundle also provides a ZanuiCustomLoader class to help create classes that load data into several (usually related) entities. Imagine we want to load data about a team and its members. With a custom loader, we can define a YAML file per team and define all relevant data within that same file, instead of having teams and members split into several YAML files. This is how the YAML file would look like:

# src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/Teams/a-team.yml

data:
  team:
    options:
      add_reference: true
    data:
      -
        name: A-team
        motto: If you can find them... maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

  member:
    options:
      local_references:
        - team
    data:
      -
        team: team-0
        name: Hannibal
      -
        team: team-0
        name: Murdock

And here is your custom loader, which extends ZanuiCustomLoader:

<?php
// src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/TeamLoader.php

namespace Acme\HelloBundle\DataFixtures;

use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Zanui\FixturesBundle\DataFixtures\ZanuiCustomLoader;

class TeamLoader extends ZanuiCustomLoader
{
    protected $name = 'Teams';
    protected $order = 1000;
    protected $baseDir = __DIR__;

    $teamClass = 'Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\Team';
    $memberClass = 'Acme\HelloBundle\Entity\Member';

    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $this->manager = $manager;
        $this->info = $this->loadInfo();

        foreach ($this->info as $current) {
            $this->current = $current;
            $this->referenceUniqueSuffix = $this->generateUniqueSuffix();

            $this->loadCustomEntity($teamClass, 'team');
            $this->loadCustomEntity($memberClass, 'member');
        }

        $manager->flush();
    }
}

The custom loader will load all files under src/Acme/HelloBundle/DataFixtures/Teams/ (the name property of the loader needs to match that of the directory), so next to a-team.yml you could add other team files and they would be processed automatically.

References in custom loaders are saved with a unique ID to avoid collisions, so they cannot be used outside the custom loader. Local references have to be explicitly declared using the local_references option. Notice how for each team member we refer to their team as team-0, as their team is the first one defined in the file. Although several teams could be defined within the same file, it is recommended to divide them into separate files.