doctrine2/manual/en/batch-processing.txt

This chapter shows you how to accomplish bulk inserts, updates and deletes with Doctrine in an efficient way. The main problem with bulk operations is usually not to run out of memory and this is especially what the strategies presented here provide help with.

> **CAUTION**
> An ORM tool is not primarily well-suited for mass inserts, updates or deletions.
> Every RDBMS has its own, most effective way of dealing with such operations and if
> the options outlined below are not sufficient for your purposes we recommend you
> use the tools for your particular RDBMS for these bulk operations.

## Bulk Inserts

Bulk inserts in Doctrine are best performed in batches, taking advantage of the transactional write-behind behavior of an `EntityManager`. The following code shows an example for inserting 10000 objects with a batch size of 20. You may need to experiment with the batch size to find the size that works best for you. Larger batch sizes mean more prepared statement reuse internally but also mean more work during `flush`.

    <?php
    $batchSize = 20;
    for ($i = 1; $i <= 10000; ++$i) {
        $user = new CmsUser;
        $user->setStatus('user');
        $user->setUsername('user' . $i);
        $user->setName('Mr.Smith-' . $i);
        $em->persist($user);
        if (($i % $batchSize) == 0) {
            $em->flush();
            $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
        }
    }

## Bulk Updates

There are 2 possibilities for bulk updates with Doctrine.

### DQL UPDATE

The by far most efficient way for bulk updates is to use a DQL UPDATE query. Example:

    <?php
    $q = $em->createQuery('update MyProject\Model\Manager m set m.salary = m.salary * 0.9');
    $numUpdated = $q->execute();

### Iterating results

An alternative solution for bulk updates is to use the `Query#iterate()` facility to iterate over the query results step by step instead of loading the whole result into memory at once. The following example shows how to do this, combining the iteration with the batching strategy that was already used for bulk inserts:

    <?php
    $batchSize = 20;
    $i = 0;
    $q = $em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
    $iterableResult = $q->iterate();
    foreach($iterableResult AS $row) {
        $user = $row[0];
        $user->increaseCredit();
        $user->calculateNewBonuses();
        if (($i % $batchSize) == 0) {
            $em->flush(); // Executes all updates.
            $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
        }
        ++$i;
    }

> **NOTE**
> Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued
> association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental
> hydration.

## Bulk Deletes

There are two possibilities for bulk deletes with Doctrine. You can either issue 
a single DQL DELETE query or you can iterate over results removing them one at a time.

### DQL DELETE

The by far most efficient way for bulk deletes is to use a DQL DELETE query.

Example:

    <?php
    $q = $em->createQuery('delete from MyProject\Model\Manager m where m.salary > 100000');
    $numDeleted = $q->execute();
    
### Iterating results

An alternative solution for bulk deletes is to use the `Query#iterate()` facility to iterate over the query results step by step instead of loading the whole result into memory at once. The following example shows how to do this:

    <?php
    $batchSize = 20;
    $i = 0;
    $q = $em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
    $iterableResult = $q->iterate();
    while (($row = $iterableResult->next()) !== false) {
        $em->remove($row[0]);
        if (($i % $batchSize) == 0) {
            $em->flush(); // Executes all deletions.
            $em->clear(); // Detaches all objects from Doctrine!
        }
        ++$i;
    }

> **NOTE**
> Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued
> association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental
> hydration.

## Iterating Large Results for Data-Processing

You can use the `iterate()` method just to iterate over a large result and no UPDATE or DELETE
intention. The `IterableResult` instance returned from `$query->iterate()` implements the
Iterator interface so you can process a large result without memory problems using the
following approach:

    <?php
    $q = $this->_em->createQuery('select u from MyProject\Model\User u');
    $iterableResult = $q->iterate();
    foreach ($iterableResult AS $row) {
        // do stuff with the data in the row, $row[0] is always the object

        // detach from Doctrine, so that it can be Garbage-Collected immediately
        $this->_em->detach($row[0]);
    }

> **NOTE**
> Iterating results is not possible with queries that fetch-join a collection-valued
> association. The nature of such SQL result sets is not suitable for incremental
> hydration.