Doctrine2 update many-to-many relations - orm

Question

I hava relations Many-to-Many with Product entity and Feature entity
Product entity:
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Feature")
* #ORM\JoinTable(name="Product_Feature",
* joinColumns={#ORM\JoinColumn(name="Product_id", referencedColumnName="id")},
* inverseJoinColumns={#ORM\JoinColumn(name="Feature_id", referencedColumnName="id")}
* )
*/
private $features;
Feature entity:
/**
* #ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity="Product", mappedBy="features")
* #ORM\OrderBy({"position" = "ASC"})
*/
private $products;
ProductRepository.php:
public function updateFeatures($id, $featuresIds)
{
return $this->getEntityManager()->createQueryBuilder()
->update('TestCatalogBundle:Product', 'p')
->set('p.features', ':features')
->where('p.id = :id')
->setParameter('features', $featuresIds)
->setParameter('id', $id)
->getQuery()
->getResult();
}
But when I call updateFeatures I get error:
features = :features': Error: Invalid PathExpression.
StateFieldPathExpression or SingleValuedAssociationField expected
How can I update Product_Feature table? Also I can't delete all features from Product_Feature by product's id.
I changed my controller in next way:
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getEntityManager();
$features = $em->getRepository('TestCatalogBundle:Feature')->findBy(array('id' => $featureIds));
$product = $em->getRepository('TestCatalogBundle:Product')->find($id);
$product->getFeatures()->clear();
foreach ($features as $feature) {
$product->addFeature($feature);
}
$em->persist($product);
$em->flush();
But if I use native sql I need 2 queries for deleting features and insert new features. But here I need 2 select queries. Maybe I made this task wrong?

Answer 1

You're doing it the wrong way. You should read this chapter of the documentation: Working with associations. You should add an "inversedBy" keyword in the $features field of the Product class.
When you have a bi-directional many-to-many relation, the usual way to do this is:
$product->getFeatures()->add($feature); // Or $product->setFeatures($features);
$feature->getProducts()->add($product);
$em->persist($product);
$em->persist($feature);
$em->flush();