Doctrine2 - How can I order by a discriminator column?

Even though TYPE is not implemented yet into the core of doctrine it's still possible to implement it as a custom user function.

Someone already did an amazing job and implemented it for us. Just in case the resource will be removed in the future, here is a slightly adjusted version for php7+:

<?phpuse Doctrine\ORM\Mapping\ClassMetadataInfo;use Doctrine\ORM\Query\AST\Functions\FunctionNode;use Doctrine\ORM\Query\Lexer;use Doctrine\ORM\Query\Parser;use Doctrine\ORM\Query\QueryException;use Doctrine\ORM\Query\SqlWalker;class TypeFunction extends FunctionNode{    /**     * @var string     */    public $dqlAlias;    public function getSql(SqlWalker $sqlWalker): string    {        /** @var ClassMetadataInfo $class */        $class = $sqlWalker->getQueryComponent($this->dqlAlias)['metadata'];        $tableAlias = $sqlWalker->getSQLTableAlias($class->getTableName(), $this->dqlAlias);        if (!isset($class->discriminatorColumn['name'])) {            $message = 'TYPE() only supports entities with a discriminator column.';            throw QueryException::semanticalError($message);        }        return $tableAlias . '.' . $class->discriminatorColumn['name'];    }    public function parse(Parser $parser)    {        $parser->match(Lexer::T_IDENTIFIER);        $parser->match(Lexer::T_OPEN_PARENTHESIS);        $this->dqlAlias = $parser->IdentificationVariable();        $parser->match(Lexer::T_CLOSE_PARENTHESIS);    }}

Now you can order by the discriminator column by doing something like:

SELECT e, TYPE(e) AS HIDDEN my_type FROM Entity e ORDER BY my_type DESC;

It seems like the simplest solution (so far) is to add another field to the base class and copy the discriminator column value.

The aforementioned TYPE(q) works only in WHERE clause.

Can your try to use TYPE() or INSTANCE OF?

related: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/doctrine-user/JtCbwuN-37o

However, this topic doesn't say if it is implemented or not. At the time it was written someone said order by wouldn't work.

$dql = 'SELECT pd        from        AccountingBundle:PaymentDetail pd        JOIN ClientProductBundle:ClientProduct cp        WITH cp.payment_detail_id = pd.id        WHERE        cp.payment_detail_id = pd.id        and cp.client_contact_id = :client_contact_id        GROUP BY pd.id        ORDER BY TYPE(pd)';