How to convert Doctrine2 entity graph to array - orm

Question

I have the following entities
Product Entity
Category Entity
Tag Entity
Brand Entity
What I am trying to do is when I get the Product by id, I want to convert it to array including all associated entities including their associated entries.
The result array needs to be serializable.

Answer 1

Use doctrine query builder and the HYDRATE_ARRAY hydration mode?
Edit: Sorry for not including examples, I was on my mobile at the time. Check out the blog post I wrote on some good practices with doctrine that semi-relates to this.
For a code example the repository method I would write to cover this would be as follows (I would avoid using abbreviations like p c etc. as it makes your code a lot less readable (at least while you are getting started with doctrine...)
<?php
namespace Vendor\Prefix\Repository;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;
class ProductRepository extends EntityRepository
{
public function find($id)
{
// $em is the entity manager
$qb = $em->createQueryBuilder();
$qb
->select('product', 'category', 'tag', 'brand', 'category_child')
// Or SomeBundle:Product if you're on symfony
->from('Vendor\Prefix\Entity\Product', 'product')
// You need to explicitly fetch join all your
// associations...and select them
->leftJoin('product.Brand', 'brand')
->leftJoin('product.Tags', 'tag')
->leftJoin('product.Categories', 'category')
->leftJoin('category.Children', 'category_child')
// Use prepared statments...its a good habit
->where($qb->expr()->eq('product.ID', ':id'))
->setParameter('id', $id)
;
$query = $qb->getQuery();
// Potential Hydration Modes
// --------------------------------
// Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_OBJECT
// Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_ARRAY
// Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_SCALAR
// Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_SINGLE_SCALAR
// Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_SIMPLEOBJECT
// Hydrate the result as an array to get the requested format
// When you use array hyrdation doctrine does it according
// to your entity graph
return $query->getResult(Doctrine\ORM\Query::HYDRATE_ARRAY);
}
}

Answer 2

I think you need to use JOIN in DQL syntax:
$results = $entityManager->executeQuery('SELECT p FROM Product p JOIN p.Brand b JOIN p.Tags t JOIN p.Categories c')->getArrayResult();
var_dump($results);
Also, I think you should avoid class members starting with an uppercase letter. It could introduce a bit of confusion with the entity name.