PostgreSQL ltree Types

PostgreSQL's ltree extension stores hierarchical label-tree paths (e.g. Top.Sports.Football) and supports ancestor/descendant queries with GiST/GIN indexes.

📖 See also: Available Types | Ltree Functions and Operators | Hierarchical Data with ltree

Requirements

The ltree extension must be enabled in PostgreSQL:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS ltree;

In Symfony, add this to the beginning of the up() method in any migration that introduces an ltree column:

$this->addSql('CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS ltree');

Registration

use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Type;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Ltree;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\LtreeArray;

Type::addType(Type::LTREE, Ltree::class);
Type::addType(Type::LTREE_ARRAY, LtreeArray::class);

ltree

Stores a single hierarchical path. Maps to MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ValueObject\Ltree in PHP.

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Type;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ValueObject\Ltree;

#[ORM\Entity]
class Category
{
    #[ORM\Column(type: Type::LTREE)]
    private Ltree $path;
}

// Setting a path
$category->path = Ltree::fromString('Top.Sports.Football');

// Working with paths
$path = Ltree::fromString('Top.Sports.Football');
$path->isDescendantOf(Ltree::fromString('Top.Sports')); // true
$path->getParent();                                     // Top.Sports
$path->withLeaf('UEFA');                                // Top.Sports.Football.UEFA

🗃️ Doctrine can't define GiST or GIN indexes with the required ltree operator classes. Create the index manually in a migration:

CREATE INDEX category_path_gist_idx ON category USING GIST (path gist_ltree_ops(siglen=100));
-- or
CREATE INDEX category_path_gin_idx ON category USING GIN (path gin_ltree_ops);

ltree[]

Stores an array of ltree paths. Maps to array<Ltree> in PHP. Null elements are supported.

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Type;
use MartinGeorgiev\Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ValueObject\Ltree;

#[ORM\Entity]
class Article
{
    #[ORM\Column(type: Type::LTREE_ARRAY)]
    private array $tags = [];
}

// Setting paths
$article->tags = [
    Ltree::fromString('Top.Sports.Football'),
    Ltree::fromString('Top.Sports.Basketball'),
];

Label-tree Functions

📖 See also: AVAILABLE-FUNCTIONS-AND-OPERATORS.md for the full function index

Path Manipulation Functions

SUBLTREE(ltree, start, end)

Extracts a subpath from position start to end-1 (counting from 0).

$dql = "SELECT SUBLTREE(e.path, 1, 2) FROM Entity e";
// subltree('Top.Child1.Child2', 1, 2) → 'Child1'

SUBPATH(ltree, offset, len)

Extracts a subpath starting at offset with length len. Supports negative values.

$dql = "SELECT SUBPATH(e.path, 0, 2) FROM Entity e";
// subpath('Top.Child1.Child2', 0, 2) → 'Top.Child1'

$dql = "SELECT SUBPATH(e.path, -2) FROM Entity e";
// subpath('Top.Child1.Child2', -2) → 'Child1.Child2'

SUBPATH(ltree, offset)

Extracts from offset to the end.

$dql = "SELECT SUBPATH(e.path, 1) FROM Entity e";
// subpath('Top.Child1.Child2', 1) → 'Child1.Child2'

Path Information Functions

NLEVEL(ltree)

Returns the number of labels in the path.

$dql = "SELECT NLEVEL(e.path) FROM Entity e";
// nlevel('Top.Child1.Child2') → 3

INDEX(a, b)

Returns the position of the first occurrence of b in a, or -1 if not found.

$dql = "SELECT INDEX(e.path, 'Child1') FROM Entity e";
// index('Top.Child1.Child2', 'Child1') → 1

INDEX(a, b, offset)

Same as above, but starts searching from offset.

$dql = "SELECT INDEX(e.path, 'Child1', 1) FROM Entity e";

Ancestor Functions

LCA(ltree1, ltree2, ...)

Computes the longest common ancestor (up to 8 arguments).

$dql = "SELECT LCA(e.path1, e.path2, e.path3) FROM Entity e";
// lca('Top.Child1.Child2', 'Top.Child1', 'Top.Child2') → 'Top'

Type Conversion Functions

TEXT2LTREE(text)

Casts text to ltree.

$dql = "SELECT e FROM Entity e WHERE e.path <@ TEXT2LTREE('Top.Sports')";

LTREE2TEXT(ltree)

Casts ltree to text.

$dql = "SELECT LTREE2TEXT(e.path) FROM Entity e";

DQL Examples

// All descendants of Top.Sports
$dql = "SELECT e FROM Entity e WHERE e.path <@ TEXT2LTREE('Top.Sports')";

// All ancestors of a given path
$dql = "SELECT e FROM Entity e WHERE TEXT2LTREE('Top.Sports.Football') <@ e.path";

// Entities at depth 2
$dql = "SELECT e FROM Entity e WHERE NLEVEL(e.path) = 2";

// Parent path
$dql = "SELECT SUBPATH(e.path, 0, NLEVEL(e.path) - 1) FROM Entity e";

// Longest common ancestor of two entities
$dql = "SELECT LCA(e1.path, e2.path) FROM Entity e1, Entity e2 WHERE e1.id = 1 AND e2.id = 2";

Performance

• Use GiST or GIN indexes on ltree columns
• <@ and @> operators use those indexes automatically
• SUBPATH with negative offsets is efficient for parent extraction
• LCA is well-suited for finding shared ancestors in hierarchical queries