How can I get an entity from Doctrine Fixture reference?

Question

I have added data fixtures in my project that relies on referencing entity objects from each other.

In data fixture one, I have added entity references such as:

            // GroupEntity_Fixtures.php file
    $this->addReference('GROUP_USER', $groupUser);
    $this->addReference('GROUP_ADMIN', $groupAdmin);

Where $groupAdmin and $groupUser are both Group() entities. In my second fixtures file I want to add those entities to my User entity via:

             //UserEntity_Fixtures.php file
             $userActive->addGroup($this->getReference('GROUP_USER'));

$userActive is a User entity with a Many to Many relationship to Group Entity. Unfortunately it seems that I am only passing in a proxy of the entity and not the entity itself which renders the following error:

 [Symfony\Component\Debug\Exception\ContextErrorException]                    
  Catchable Fatal Error: Argument 1 passed to Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\User:  
  :addGroup() must be an instance of Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\groups, instan  
  ce of Proxies\__CG__\Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group given, called in /home  
  /na/Practice/src/Blogger/BlogBundle/DataFixtures/ORM/CreateUserController_S  
  ignUpForm_UserEntity_Fixtures.php on line 27 and defined in /home/na/Practi  
  ce/src/Blogger/BlogBundle/Entity/User.php line 305 

How do I convert the reference from a proxy to the entity it expects?

---

Code for Group Fixture:

<?php
// DataFixtures/ORM/GroupEntity_Fixtrues.php

namespace Blogger\BlogBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\User;
use Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group;

class GroupEntity_Fixtures extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     */
     public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
     {
        $groupUser = new Group();
        $groupUser->setName('GROUP_USER');
        $groupUser->setRole('ROLE_USER');
        $manager->persist($groupUser);

        $groupAdmin = new Group();
        $groupAdmin->setName('GROUP_ADMIN');
        $groupAdmin->setRole('ROLE_USER,ROLE_ADMIN');
        $manager->persist($groupAdmin);

        $manager->flush();

        $this->addReference('GROUP_USER', $groupUser);
        $this->addReference('GROUP_ADMIN', $groupAdmin);
     }

     public function getOrder()
     {
        return 1;
     }
}

Code for User Fixture

<?php
// DataFixtures/ORM/CreateUserController_SignUpForm_UserEntity_Fixtrues.php

namespace Blogger\BlogBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\User;
use Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group;

class CreateUserController_SignUpForm_UserEntity_Fixtures extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     */
     public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
     {
        $groupUser2 = new Group();
        $groupUser2->setName('GROUP_USER');
        $groupUser2->setRole('ROLE_USER');
        $manager->persist($groupUser2);

        // This person represents an active (email verified) user.
        $userActive = new User();
        $userActive->setPassword("passwordActive");
        $userActive->setEmail("[email protected]");
        $userActive->setUserName("testActive");
        $userActive->setPassword(crypt($userActive->getPassword(),$userActive->getSalt()));
        $userActive->setEmailToken(md5(uniqid(rand(), true)));
        $userActive->addGroup($groupUser2);
        //$userActive->getGroups()->add($groupRepository->getGroupByName("BASIC_USER"));

        // This person represents an unactive (email not verified) user.
        $userUnactive = new User();
        $userUnactive->setPassword("passwordUnactive");
        $userUnactive->setEmail("[email protected]");
        $userUnactive->setUserName("testUnactive");
        $userUnactive->setPassword(crypt($userUnactive->getPassword(),$userUnactive->getSalt()));
        $userUnactive->setEmailToken(md5(uniqid(rand(), true)));

        // Persist objects into the database
        $manager->persist($userActive);
        $manager->persist($userUnactive);
        $manager->flush();

     }

     public function getOrder()
     {
        return 2;
     }
}

Code for Group Entity:

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="User", inversedBy="groups")
 */
private $users;

Code for User Entity:

/**
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Group", mappedBy="users")
 */
protected $groups;

Added Group Methos:

/**
 * Add groups
 *
 * @param \Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\groups $groups
 * @return User
 */
public function addGroup(\Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\groups $groups)
{
    $this->groups[] = $groups;

    return $this;
}

Answer 1

The addGroup method has the wrong type hint:

It should be:

/**
 * Add groups
 *
 * @param \Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group $groups
 * @return User
 */
public function addGroup(\Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group $groups)
{
    $this->groups[] = $groups;

    return $this;
}

Notice \Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\Group instead of \Blogger\BlogBundle\Entity\groups.