Symfony Serializer circular reference due to many-to-many relationship-CodePudding

i require an api that retruns a json data so i'm trying to send json data via a controller in symfony and I'm using serializer but I'm having issues assigning groups to the attributes with the many to many relationships(category and users). Controller Code :

        $serializer = $this->container->get('serializer');
        $JSONprojects = $serializer->serialize($DATA, 'json', ['groups' => ['project','category']]);
        return new Response($JSONprojects); 

        return $JSONprojects ;

project.php (enity).

class Project
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue
     * @Groups("project")
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
     * @Groups("project")
     */
    private $name;


/**
 *
 * @ORM\ManyToMany(targetEntity=User::class, mappedBy="projects")
 */
private $users;

/**
 * @Groups("project")
 * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity=User::class, inversedBy="myproject")
 * @ORM\JoinColumn(nullable=false)
 */
private $creator;

/**
 *
 * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity=Category::class, inversedBy="projects")
 */
private $category;

Category.php (entity)

 class Category
 {
/**
 * @ORM\Id
 * @ORM\GeneratedValue
 * @ORM\Column(type="integer")
 *
 */
private $id;

/**
 * 
 * @ORM\Column(type="string", length=255)
 */
private $name;

/**
 *  
 * @ORM\Column(type="text")
 */
private $image;

/**
 *  
 * @ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity=Project::class, mappedBy="category")
 */
private $projects;

CodePudding user response：

You can handle circular references with the serializer like this:

$JSONprojects = $serializer->serialize($data, 'json', [
    'circular_reference_handler' => function ($object) { return $object; },
    'groups' => ['project','category']
]);

More on circular references in the Symfony docs.

CodePudding user response：

Do not serialize doctrine entity objects, use Data Transfer Object.

DTO will save the headache, although much more code to write.