How do I use a complex criteria inside a doctrine 2 entity's repository?

Doctrine 2.3 added a matching() method that lets you use Criteria.

The example by Jeremy Hicks may be written like this (note, this returns an ArrayCollection instead of an array).

public function findActiveFestivals($start, $end){    $expr = Criteria::expr();    $criteria = Criteria::create();    $criteria->where($expr->gte('start', $start));    $criteria->andWhere($expr->lte('end', $end);    return $this->matching($criteria);}

Personally, I wouldn't use andWhere here, and use a few more lines to improve readability, like this:

public function findActiveFestivals($start, $end){    $expr = Criteria::expr();    $criteria = Criteria::create();    $criteria->where(      $expr->andX(        $expr->gte('start', $start),        $expr->lte('end', $end)      )    );    return $this->matching($criteria);}

Using an IN clause is very simple.

public function findFestivalsByIds($ids){    $expr = Criteria::expr();    $criteria = Criteria::create();    $criteria->where($expr->in('id', $ids));    return $this->matching($criteria);}

The Criteria class is in Doctrine's not-really-ORM-or-DBAL Common's namespace, like their ArrayCollection (which has supported Criteria longer than EntityRepository).

Its meant to be a decoupled way for non-repository code to create sophicated criteria. So it should be fine to use this class outside of the repository. QueryBuilder supports Criteria recently as well. So even when building more sophisticated queries that require QueryBuilder, you can use Criteria to give the non-database code flexibility in what it requests.

You'll need to write your own query (probably using DQL) if you want something that specific. I believe the built in "findBy" methods are more for just grabbing objects quickly if you have less specific criteria. I don't know your entity names or where they are stored. Could be something like this as a function in your Festival Repository.

public function findActiveFestivals($start, $end){    $qb = $this->_em->createQueryBuilder();    $qb->select('f')        ->from('Festival', 'f')        ->where('f.start >= :start')        ->andWhere('f.end <= :end')        ->setParameters(array('start' => $start, 'end' => $end));    return $qb->getQuery()->getArrayResult();}

thats not the answer for Doron questiondoctrine have entity repository that not make us using query at all...

$this->em->getRepository($this->entity)->findBy(array $criteria);

but what did he asked is how to complex operator in array $criterianormal format of array $criteria is array('field'=> $value);