Symfony2 FOSElasticaBundle update index for all entities related to the entity updated

Question

I'm using FOSElasticaBundle and Doctrine in my project, and my code works for the selective index update using the Doctrine lifecycle events. The issue I come up against is if I an update a related entity separately.

For example a person may be related to a company through a manytomany relationship. If I update the company name through company entity directly, then indexes for the person related to the company will be out of date and still relate to the company's old name.

I'm a bit lost as to how to handle this, does anyone have any suggestions? Do I have to rely on a scheduled index update and cope with inaccurate index data in the mean time, or is there a way I can call an update for entities related to the entity that has been updated.

I am relying on JMSSerializer groups to establish the mappings. I appreciate this might not be the best way to do things in the longterm.

Answer 1

I've had the same problem. It seems my installation (Symfony 2.5.4 and FOSElastica 3.0.4) differs quite a bit from yours though. Therefore, there were some problems to get the code working. I'm posting my solution, because it may be useful for other developers out there.

The Listener isn't in FOS\ElasticaBundle\Doctrine\ORM\, but in FOS\ElasticaBundle\Doctrine. So you'll have to use that one. Also I had to use Doctrine\Common\EventArgs instead of Doctrine\ORM\Event\LifecycleEventArgs, 'cause otherwise my own postUpdate-method wasn't compatible with the one in the BaseListener.

In my app, a course (seminar) can have a lot of sessions, but in this project, elastica will only be using those sessions. The app needs to know some details of the course that is related to the session of course. So, here's my code:

In config.yml my elastica bundle config looks like this:

fos_elastica:
    clients:
        default: { host: localhost, port: 9200 }
    indexes:
        courses:
            index_name: courses
            types:
                session:
                    mappings:
                        id: ~
                        name: ~
                        course:
                            type: "nested"
                            properties:
                                id: ~
                                name: ~

A little further, still in config.yml

services:
     # some other services here

     fos_elastica.listener.courses.course:
         class: XXX\CourseBundle\EventListener\ElasticaCourseListener
         arguments:
             - @fos_elastica.object_persister.courses.course
             - ['postPersist', 'postUpdate', 'preRemove']
             - @fos_elastica.indexable
         calls:
             - [ setContainer, ['@service_container', @fos_elastica.object_persister.courses.session ] ]
         tags:
             - { name: 'doctrine.event_subscriber' }

My own listener (XXX\CourseBundle\EventListener\ElasticaCourseListener) then looks like this:

<?php

namespace XXX\CourseBundle\EventListener;

use Doctrine\Common\EventArgs;
use FOS\ElasticaBundle\Doctrine\Listener as BaseListener;
use FOS\ElasticaBundle\Persister\ObjectPersister;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;
use XXX\CourseBundle\Entity\Course;

class ElasticaCourseListener extends BaseListener
{
    private $container;
    private $objectPersisterSession;

    public function setContainer(ContainerInterface $container, ObjectPersister $objectPersisterSession)
    {
        $this->container = $container;
        $this->objectPersisterSession = $objectPersisterSession;
    }

    public function postUpdate(EventArgs $args)
    {
        $entity = $args->getEntity();

        if ($entity instanceof Course) {
            $this->scheduledForUpdate[] = $entity;
            foreach ($entity->getSessions() as $session) {
                $this->objectPersisterSession->replaceOne($session);
            }
        }
    }
}

Now, when I update a course, it will be updated as a nested object in ElasticSearch ;-)