Mysql Enums =========== The type system of Doctrine 2 consists of flyweights, which means there is only one instance of any given type. Additionally types do not contain state. Both assumptions make it rather complicated to work with the Enum Type of MySQL that is used quite a lot by developers. When using Enums with a non-tweaked Doctrine 2 application you will get errors from the Schema-Tool commands due to the unknown database type "enum". By default Doctrine does not map the MySQL enum type to a Doctrine type. This is because Enums contain state (their allowed values) and Doctrine types don't. This cookbook entry shows two possible solutions to work with MySQL enums. But first a word of warning. The MySQL Enum type has considerable downsides: - Adding new values requires to rebuild the whole table, which can take hours depending on the size. - Enums are ordered in the way the values are specified, not in their "natural" order. - Enums validation mechanism for allowed values is not necessarily good, specifying invalid values leads to an empty enum for the default MySQL error settings. You can easily replicate the "allow only some values" requirement in your Doctrine entities. Solution 1: Mapping to Varchars ------------------------------- You can map ENUMs to varchars. You can register MySQL ENUMs to map to Doctrine varchars. This way Doctrine always resolves ENUMs to Doctrine varchars. It will even detect this match correctly when using SchemaTool update commands. .. code-block:: php getConnection(); $conn->getDatabasePlatform()->registerDoctrineTypeMapping('enum', 'string'); In this case you have to ensure that each varchar field that is an enum in the database only gets passed the allowed values. You can easily enforce this in your entities: .. code-block:: php status = $status; } } If you want to actively create enums through the Doctrine Schema-Tool by using the **columnDefinition** attribute. .. code-block:: php values); return "ENUM(".implode(", ", $values).") COMMENT '(DC2Type:".$this->name.")'"; } public function convertToPHPValue($value, AbstractPlatform $platform) { return $value; } public function convertToDatabaseValue($value, AbstractPlatform $platform) { if (!in_array($value, $this->values)) { throw new \InvalidArgumentException("Invalid '".$this->name."' value."); } return $value; } public function getName() { return $this->name; } } With this base class you can define an enum as easily as: .. code-block:: php