From 22ac3a3099069432575962540810e1f8982b82b5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benjamin Eberlei <kontakt@beberlei.de>
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:28:31 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Add cookbook entry on saving entities in the session.

---
 en/cookbook/entities-in-session.rst | 68 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 68 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 en/cookbook/entities-in-session.rst

diff --git a/en/cookbook/entities-in-session.rst b/en/cookbook/entities-in-session.rst
new file mode 100644
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+Entities in the Session
+=======================
+
+There are several use-cases to save entities in the session, for example:
+
+1.  User object
+2.  Multi-step forms
+
+To achieve this with Doctrine you have to pay attention to some details to get
+this working.
+
+Merging entity into an EntityManager
+------------------------------------
+
+In Doctrine an entity objects has to be "managed" by an EntityManager to be
+updateable. Entities saved into the session are not managed in the next request
+anymore. This means that you have to register these entities with an
+EntityManager again if you want to change them or use them as part of
+references between other entities. You can achieve this by calling
+``EntityManager#merge()``.
+
+For a representative User object the code to get turn an instance from
+the session into a managed Doctrine object looks like this:
+
+.. code-block:: php
+
+    <?php
+    require_once 'bootstrap.php';
+    $em = GetEntityManager(); // creates an EntityManager 
+
+    session_start();
+    if (isset($_SESSION['user']) && $_SESSION['user'] instanceof User) {
+        $user = $_SESSION['user']; 
+        $user = $em->merge($user);
+    }
+
+.. note::
+
+    A frequent mistake is not to get the merged user object from the return
+    value of ``EntityManager#merge()``. The entity object passed to merge is
+    not necessarily the same object that is returned from the method.
+
+Serializing entity into the session
+-----------------------------------
+
+Entities that are serialized into the session normally contain references to
+other entities as well. Think of the user entity has a reference to his
+articles, groups, photos or many other different entities. If you serialize
+this object into the session then you don't want to serialize the related
+entities aswell. This is why you should call ``EntityManager#detach()`` on this
+object or implement the __sleep() magic method on your entity.
+
+.. code-block:: php
+
+    <?php
+    require_once 'bootstrap.php';
+    $em = GetEntityManager(); // creates an EntityManager 
+
+    $user = $em->find("User", 1);
+    $em->detach($user);
+    $_SESSION['user'] = $user;
+
+.. note::
+
+    When you called detach on your objects they get "unmanaged" with that
+    entity manager. This means you cannot use them as part of write operations
+    during ``EntityManagr#flush()`` anymore in this request.
+