Doctrine inversedBy field contains PersistentCollection - mysql

Question

I have relation between two tables through third with extra row (s) like in this question
/** #Entity
*/
class Illness {
/** #Id #GeneratedValue #Column(type="integer") */
private $illness_id;
/** #Column(type="string") */
private $name;
/** #OneToMany(targetEntity="Illness_Symptom_Association", mappedBy="Illness") */
private $symptAssoc;
public function __construct()
{
$this->symptAssoc = new \Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection();
}
public function setName($val)
{
$this->name = $val;
}
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
public function getSymptAssoc()
{
return $this->symptAssoc;
}
}
Join table with third param s (something like priority)
/**
* #Entity
*/
class Illness_Symptom_Association {
protected $illness_id;
/**
* #Id()
* #ManyToOne(targetEntity="Illness", inversedBy="symptAssoc")
* #JoinColumn(name="illness_id", referencedColumnName="illness_id", nullable=false)
*/
protected $illness;
/**
* #Id()
* #ManyToOne(targetEntity="Symptom", inversedBy="symptAssoc")
* #JoinColumn(name="symptom_id", referencedColumnName="symptom_id")
* */
protected $symptom;
/** #Column(type="integer") */
protected $s;
public function setIllness(Illness $illness)
{
$this->illness = $illness;
}
/**
*
* #return Illness
*/
public function getIllness()
{
return $this->illness;
}
public function setSymptom(Symptom $sympt)
{
return $this->symptom = $sympt;
}
public function getSymptom()
{
return $this->symptom;
}
public function setS($s)
{
$this->s = $s;
}
public function getS()
{
return $this->s;
}
}
Last entity with symptoms:
/**
* #Entity
*/
class Symptom {
/** #Id #GeneratedValue #Column(type="integer") */
protected $symptom_id;
/** #Column(type="string", unique=true) */
protected $name;
/** #OneToMany(targetEntity="Illness_Symptom_Association", mappedBy="symptom") */
protected $symptAssoc;
public function setName($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
}
public function getName($name)
{
return $this->name;
}
}
But
$illness = $em->getRepository('Entity\Illness')->find($id);
$illness->getSymptAssoc();
return PersistentCollection oject.
How I can get list of symptoms with s param from join table?

Answer 1

A PersistentCollection is a Collection (of Symptom objects, in this case). It already is a list of symptoms.
You can iterate it (just like an array), access its elements (which are Symptom objects in this case), or convert it to an array:
$illness->getSymptAssoc()->toArray();