Overriding Doctrine_Record (sfDoctrineRecord) instance methods in Doctrine PHP Symfony

Question

My background is in Propel, so I was hoping it would be a simple thing to override a magical getter in a Doctrine_Record (sfDoctrineRecord), but I'm getting either a Segfault or the override method is simply ignored in favor of the one in the superclass.

https://gist.github.com/697008eaf4d7b606286a

class FaqCategory extends BaseFaqCategory
{

  public function __toString()
  {
    return $this->getCategory();
  }

  // doesn't work
  // override getDisplayName to fall back to category name if getDisplayName doesn't exist
  public function getDisplayName() {

    // also tried parent::getDisplayName() but got segfault(!)
    if(isset($this->display_name)) {
      $display_name = $this->display_name;
    } else {
      $display_name = $this->category;
    }

    return $display_name;

  }

}

What is the proper Doctrine way to extend/override methods on an instance of Doctrine_Record (via sfDoctrineRecord extends Doctrine_Record)? This has to be doable...or should I be looking at the Template documentation?

Thanks, Brian

Answer 1

Not sure about what do you wanted to do exactly, but here are some hints:

1. Doctrine (with ATTR_AUTO_ACCESSOR_OVERRIDE attribute enabled, which is enabled by symfony) allows you to override certain component columns' getters just by defining getColumnName methods in model class. That's why your getDisplayName method can fall infinite loop which usually causes segfault.

2. To access/modify column value directly (bypassing custom (get|set)ters) you have to use _get('column_name') and _set('column_name') methods defined by Doctrine_Record class.

3. All the $obj->getSomething(), $obj->something and $obj['something'] calls are actually magical. They are "redirected" to $obj->get('something') which is only real way to access model data.