php - Doctrine2: Map Object with Sub-Entities to Entity without additional table -


i'm struggling hours one...

i have buddy object (entity) holds (should hold) preference object. inside object have several collections of sub-objects. simplicity i'll explain 1 single sub-object. let's call university. it's entity of own.

currently, buddy , preference have one-to-one association buddy having database column preference_id , preference id , nothing else. preference , university have many-to-many association, mapped doctrine buddy_preferences_universities table preference_id , univeristy_id columns.

my goal establish association between buddy , university keeping described class hierarchy without need of useless preferences table, i.e. still want able issue $unis = $buddy->getpreference()->getuniversities , $unis being university[] collection.

so, possible "skip" preference entity , map associations directly buddy_id?

here's image of tables created doctrine's schema-tool:

db tables

if necessary can post classes and/or xml mapping files.

thank you!

can not make buddy_preferences table this:

id: char(36) university_id: char(36) country_id: char(36) interest_id: char(36) 

like can drop 3 join tables.

now can $buddy->getpreference()->getuniversity();