Problem description
I'm trying to configure a CakePHP 3.7 API to save associated data in a child-first manner. The entities - for the sake of example, lets call them Users and Persons - and their relationships are as follows:
UsersTable.php
...
$this->belongsTo('Persons', [
'foreignKey' => 'person_id',
'joinType' => 'LEFT',
'className' => 'MyPlugin.Persons',
]);
...
PersonsTable.php
$this->hasOne('Users', [
'foreignKey' => 'person_id',
'className' => 'MyPlugin.Users'
]);
In their respective entities, they each have one another's property visibility set to true. What I'm trying to do is POST to the /users/ route (UsersController.php) and have it also save the Persons object included. The payload is as such:
{
"username": "foo",
"password": "bar",
"persons": {
"dob": "1982-07-03",
}
}
The relevant part of the saving method is below, from UsersController.php:
if ($this->request->is('post') && !empty($this->request->getData())) {
$data = $this->request->getData();
$newEntity = $this->Users->newEntity($data, ['associated' => 'Persons']);
$savedEntity = $this->Users->save($newEntity);
...
The error
This produces the following SQL error.
PDOException: SQLSTATE[23502]: Not null violation: 7 ERROR: null value in column 'person_id' violates not-null constraint DETAIL: Failing row contains (1, null, foo, bar)
I understand this is because Cake is attempting to save to Users without having a person_id to satisfy the foreign key constraint. It's not possible to reverse this FK relationship in my application domain as we desire leftward one-to-many relationship (User -> 1 Person).
I suspect sending an id in the persons object of the JSON payload will allow this to save correctly. However, for various reasons, this isn't possible at runtime. For example, this is how it's shown in the "Saving Data" CakePHP Book page...
$data = [
'title' => 'First Post',
'user' => [
'id' => 1,
'username' => 'mark'
]
];
...
$article = $articles->newEntity($data, [
'associated' => ['Users']
]);
$articles->save($article);
I know the following would also likely work as suggested by xPfqHZ for a similar issue, as Persons can save to Users, but it feels less suitable as compared to what I'm trying to do and feels as if there is a way via the associations on Users.
if ($this->request->is('post') && !empty($this->request->getData())) {
$data = $this->request->getData();
$newEntity = $this->Users->Persons->newEntity($data, ['associated' => 'Persons']);
$savedEntity = $this->Users->Persons->save($newEntity);
...
Workings
Now I believe this used to be possible in CakePHP 2.X, as stated in this answer by ndm on a similar question where a person is attempting to save the belongsTo associated entity and it's parent hasOne entity in one request via the belongsTo entity.
That's the expected behavior, saveAssociated() is not meant to save only the associated records, it will save the main record as well, so you should use saveAssociated() only, no need to manually set the foreign key, etc, CakePHP will do that automatically.
Controller
public function create() { if ($this->request->is('post') && !empty($this->request->data)): $this->CandidatesProblemReport->create(); if ($this->CandidatesProblemReport->saveAssociated($this->request->data)): // ... endif; endif; }
However, I'm not able to find or use the saveAssociated() method upon the Cake\ORM\Table object which the Users entity inherits from, in the documentation. Calling it produces a method not found error. This method only appears to exist on the Cake\ORM\Association object as detailed in the documentation. Unless I'm missing the obvious, is there a way to use this or is it used internally by BelongsTo() and its sibling methods?
Logging / Dumping entity
Using Cake\Log\Log::error($newEntity); or die(var_dump($newEntity)); shows the Users data of the payload hydrated into an object, but I don't see the Persons object attached (see below).
object(MyPlugin\Model\Entity\User)[299]
public 'username' => string 'foo' (length=3)
public 'password' => string 'bar' (length=3)
public '[new]' => boolean true
public '[accessible]' =>
array (size=5)
'*' => boolean false
'person_id' => boolean true
'username' => boolean true
'password' => boolean true
'person' => boolean true
public '[dirty]' =>
array (size=2)
'username' => boolean true
'password' => boolean true
public '[original]' =>
array (size=0)
empty
public '[virtual]' =>
array (size=0)
empty
public '[hasErrors]' => boolean false
public '[errors]' =>
array (size=0)
empty
public '[invalid]' =>
array (size=0)
empty
public '[repository]' => string 'MyPlugin.Users' (length=17)
Attempting to \Cake\Log\Log::error($savedEntity); shows nothing in the log file.
save() associations arguments
Another solution I considered was using the $options['associated] of save() as shown in the documentation (extract below). With this set to true as below, the error still occurred.
save( Cake\Datasource\EntityInterface $entity , array $options [] )
... associated: If true it will save 1st level associated entities as they are found in the passed $entity whenever the property defined for the association is marked as dirty. If an array, it will be interpreted as the list of associations to be saved. It is possible to provide different options for saving on associated table objects using this key by making the custom options the array value. If false no associated records will be saved. (default: true) ...
UsersController.php:
if ($this->request->is('post') && !empty($this->request->getData())) {
$data = $this->request->getData();
$newEntity = $this->Users->newEntity($data, ['associated' => 'Persons']);
$savedEntity = $this->Users->save($newEntity, ['associated' => true]);
...
Summary
Without going through the PersonsController.php and utilising its hasOne relationship, I'm not having much luck getting my Users and Persons data to save through the UsersController.php.
If I've missed any important information, or you have questions/need more, please ask! I might have missed something obvious, but I'd appreciate any suggestions/solutions possible.
