[php] On delete cascade with doctrine2

I'm trying to make a simple example in order to learn how to delete a row from a parent table and automatically delete the matching rows in the child table using Doctrine2.

Here are the two entities I'm using:

Child.php:

<?php

namespace Acme\CascadeBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\Table(name="child")
 */
class Child {

    /**
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    private $id;
    /**
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Father", cascade={"remove"})
     *
     * @ORM\JoinColumns({
     *   @ORM\JoinColumn(name="father_id", referencedColumnName="id")
     * })
     *
     * @var father
     */
    private $father;
}

Father.php

<?php
namespace Acme\CascadeBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\Table(name="father")
 */
class Father
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     */
    private $id;
}

The tables are correctly created on the database, but the On Delete Cascade option it's not created. What am I doing wrong?

Here is simple example. A contact has one to many associated phone numbers. When a contact is deleted, I want all its associated phone numbers to also be deleted, so I use ON DELETE CASCADE. The one-to-many/many-to-one relationship is implemented with by the foreign key in the phone_numbers.

CREATE TABLE contacts
 (contact_id BIGINT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
 name VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY(contact_id)) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE phone_numbers
 (phone_id BIGINT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
  phone_number CHAR(10) NOT NULL,
 contact_id BIGINT NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY(phone_id),
 UNIQUE(phone_number)) ENGINE = InnoDB;

ALTER TABLE phone_numbers ADD FOREIGN KEY (contact_id) REFERENCES \
contacts(contact_id) ) ON DELETE CASCADE;

By adding "ON DELETE CASCADE" to the foreign key constraint, phone_numbers will automatically be deleted when their associated contact is deleted.

INSERT INTO table contacts(name) VALUES('Robert Smith');
INSERT INTO table phone_numbers(phone_number, contact_id) VALUES('8963333333', 1);
INSERT INTO table phone_numbers(phone_number, contact_id) VALUES('8964444444', 1);

Now when a row in the contacts table is deleted, all its associated phone_numbers rows will automatically be deleted.

DELETE TABLE contacts as c WHERE c.id=1; /* delete cascades to phone_numbers */

To achieve the same thing in Doctrine, to get the same DB-level "ON DELETE CASCADE" behavoir, you configure the @JoinColumn with the onDelete="CASCADE" option.

<?php
namespace Entities;

use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;

/**
 * @Entity
 * @Table(name="contacts")
 */
class Contact 
{

    /**
     *  @Id
     *  @Column(type="integer", name="contact_id") 
     *  @GeneratedValue
     */
    protected $id;  

    /** 
     * @Column(type="string", length="75", unique="true") 
     */ 
    protected $name; 

    /** 
     * @OneToMany(targetEntity="Phonenumber", mappedBy="contact")
     */ 
    protected $phonenumbers; 

    public function __construct($name=null)
    {
        $this->phonenumbers = new ArrayCollection();

        if (!is_null($name)) {

            $this->name = $name;
        }
    }

    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function setName($name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function addPhonenumber(Phonenumber $p)
    {
        if (!$this->phonenumbers->contains($p)) {

            $this->phonenumbers[] = $p;
            $p->setContact($this);
        }
    }

    public function removePhonenumber(Phonenumber $p)
    {
        $this->phonenumbers->remove($p);
    }
}

<?php
namespace Entities;

/**
 * @Entity
 * @Table(name="phonenumbers")
 */
class Phonenumber 
{

    /**
    * @Id
    * @Column(type="integer", name="phone_id") 
    * @GeneratedValue
    */
    protected $id; 

    /**
     * @Column(type="string", length="10", unique="true") 
     */  
    protected $number;

    /** 
     * @ManyToOne(targetEntity="Contact", inversedBy="phonenumbers")
     * @JoinColumn(name="contact_id", referencedColumnName="contact_id", onDelete="CASCADE")
     */ 
    protected $contact; 

    public function __construct($number=null)
    {
        if (!is_null($number)) {

            $this->number = $number;
        }
    }

    public function setPhonenumber($number)
    {
        $this->number = $number;
    }

    public function setContact(Contact $c)
    {
        $this->contact = $c;
    }
} 
?>

<?php

$em = \Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager::create($connectionOptions, $config);

$contact = new Contact("John Doe"); 

$phone1 = new Phonenumber("8173333333");
$phone2 = new Phonenumber("8174444444");
$em->persist($phone1);
$em->persist($phone2);
$contact->addPhonenumber($phone1); 
$contact->addPhonenumber($phone2); 

$em->persist($contact);
try {

    $em->flush();
} catch(Exception $e) {

    $m = $e->getMessage();
    echo $m . "<br />\n";
}

If you now do

# doctrine orm:schema-tool:create --dump-sql

you will see that the same SQL will be generated as in the first, raw-SQL example