Doctrine 2: Update query with query builder

I think you need to use ->set() It's much safer to make all your values parameters:

$queryBuilder = $this->em->createQueryBuilder();
$query = $queryBuilder->update('models\User', 'u')
        ->set('u.username', ':userName')
        ->set('u.email', ':email')
        ->where('u.id = :editId')
        ->setParameter('userName', $userName)
        ->setParameter('email', $email)
        ->setParameter('editId', $editId)
        ->getQuery();
$result = $query->execute();

Let's say there is an administrator dashboard where users are listed with their id printed as a data attribute so it can be retrieved at some point via JavaScript.

An update could be executed this way …

class UserRepository extends \Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository
{
    public function updateUserStatus($userId, $newStatus)
    {
        return $this->createQueryBuilder('u')
            ->update()
            ->set('u.isActive', '?1')
            ->setParameter(1, $qb->expr()->literal($newStatus))
            ->where('u.id = ?2')
            ->setParameter(2, $qb->expr()->literal($userId))
            ->getQuery()
            ->getSingleScalarResult()
        ;
    }

AJAX action handling:

# Post datas may be:
# handled with a specific custom formType — OR — retrieved from request object
$userId = (int)$request->request->get('userId');
$newStatus = (int)$request->request->get('newStatus');
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$r = $em->getRepository('NAMESPACE\User')
        ->updateUserStatus($userId, $newStatus);
if ( !empty($r) ){
    # Row updated
}

Working example using Doctrine 2.5 (on top of Symfony3).