Doctrine array vs simple_array vs json_array

Solution 1:

For your problem simple_array is the right way, the right way may also create seven boolean fields.

However here's a little vademecum:

The best way to see how a type works in doctrine is to read the code of the type, this is because there are several details that are taken for granted or are not really explained in the documentation.

So you can go into

/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/Type.php

find your type and check if its methods work as you want.

Here some details:

simple_array

in /vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/SimpleArrayType.php

return implode(',', $value);

it's just a implode()/explode() of items, stores only the values and it's useful because you can easily query the database.

array

in /vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/ArrayType.php

return serialize($value);

calls PHP to serialize()/unserialize(), it's faster than json_array. Looking at the code I think it also works with objects. Obviously if you see the field as plain text it's uncomprensible.

json_array

in /vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/JsonArrayType.php

return json_encode($value);

it calls json_encode()/json_decode(), if you look in the field you can see a unformatted JSON array but it's more readable than PHP's serialized object and is really more portable (JSON exists everywhere).

June 2018 update

now there is a complete and more updated documentation here
json_array is deprecated in favor of json type, it will leverage on new database features for json fields

Solution 2:

Another consideration: The most efficient way to represent a small set of true/false values like the ones presented here would be a bitfield.

That way you're only storing one integer instead of a full string. And you avoid the encode/decode overhead.

See https://stackoverflow.com/a/5412214/827254 for a good example.