still learning doctrine.
Shouldn't this limit the field size? * @ORM\Column(name="text", type="text", length=4)
It does not, could enter a text size of more than four bytes.
If you want to limit your text column's length, use the type "string" and not "text".
Source: http://doctrine-dbal.readthedocs.org/en/latest/reference/types.html#string