How to handle SQL triggers in Symfony2?

To quote a response to this question from a google group:

Database side code (such as Triggers and Functions) tend to break the benefits of developing software using an ORM like Propel or Doctrine as one of the biggest advantages of using ORM's is to be database agnostic. By having database side Triggers and Functions you are tying yourself to the database and therefore gain little to no benefit using an ORM. -GarethMc

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/symfony-users/MH_ML9Dy0Rw

For this it is best to use the Life Cycle Callbacks as Faery suggests. One simple function will handle updating that field so that you dont have to worry about it if you decide to change databases in the future.

//In Your Entity File EX: SomeClass.php
/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @ORM\HasLifecycleCallbacks()
 */
class SomeClass
{
    ....

    /**
     * @ORM\PrePersist()
     * @ORM\PreUpdate()
     */
    public function prePersistPreUpdate()
    {
        $this->last_modified = new \DateTime();
    }
}

See also references for lifecycle callbacks

• Symfony reference
• Doctrine reference

In your case you would add the lifecycle call back function and annotation to your User entity class. SomeClass is simply an example class showing that lifecycle callbacks are good for more than just your User entity.

Another (easier and more generalized) option would be to use the Timestampable Doctrine extension by Gedmo. In this way, you could simply annotate your entity fields to be timestamped on create or on update.

Example:

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Gedmo\Mapping\Annotation as Gedmo;

class MyEntity
{
    ...

    /**
     * @var \DateTime $lastUpdated
     *
     * @Gedmo\Timestampable(on="update")
     * @ORM\Column(name="last_updated", type="datetime")
     */
    private $lastUpdated;

    ...
}

https://packagist.org/packages/gedmo/doctrine-extensions