PUT a property with object relation to null

So I have an Person entity and a Country entity. The Person entity has this property

    /**
     * @var Country
     *
     * @ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity="Country")
     * @ORM\JoinColumns({
     *   @ORM\JoinColumn(name="countryOfNationalityId", referencedColumnName="id", nullable=true)
     * })
     * @Groups({"get_method", "put_method"})
     */
    private $countryOfNationality; 

The issue is that I can not make it NULL after it has been set already. So if I use PUT with {“countryOfNationality” : null}, I get this error: Expected argument of type \"App\\Entity\\Country\", \"NULL\" given at property path \"countryOfNationality\"."

Is there anyway to nullify a property with relation? Thanks.

[Airone2000]

public function setCountryOfNationality(Country $countryOfNationality): self

becomes …

public function setCountryOfNationality(?Country $countryOfNationality): self

and it should work.

[wow-apps]

@osamaarefm , @mrtnzagustin cc. @teohhanhui

I solved this issue via EventSubscriber, check it out:

I has some entities with property cover which includes other entity. For those entities I’ve implement interface and add event subscriber:

<?php

// src/Entity/HasCoverInterface.php

namespace Api\Entity;

interface HasCoverInterface
{
    public function getCover(): ?ImageFile;

    public function setCover(?ImageFile $cover): self;
}

<?php

// src/EventSubscriber/RemoveCoverSubscriber.php

namespace Api\EventSubscriber;

use ApiPlatform\Core\EventListener\EventPriorities;
use Api\Entity\HasCoverInterface;
use Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\EventSubscriberInterface;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\ViewEvent;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\KernelEvents;

class RemoveCoverSubscriber implements EventSubscriberInterface
{
    public static function getSubscribedEvents()
    {
        return [
            KernelEvents::VIEW => ['setValueToNull', EventPriorities::PRE_WRITE],
        ];
    }

    public function setValueToNull(ViewEvent $event)
    {
        $request = $event->getRequest();
        if (!in_array($request->getMethod(), [Request::METHOD_PUT])) {
            return;
        }

        $class = $request->attributes->get('_api_resource_class');
        if (!in_array(HasCoverInterface::class, class_implements($class))) {
            return;
        }

        if (empty($request->getContent())) {
            return;
        }

        $content = json_decode($request->getContent(), true);
        if (!array_key_exists('cover', $content) || !is_null($content['cover'])) {
            return;
        }

        /** @var HasCoverInterface $object */
        $object = $event->getControllerResult();
        $object->setCover(null);

        $event->setControllerResult($object);
    }
}