Re: 3.0: Saving new entity with belongsToMany data

i figured out part of my trouble, but the purpose of the original post still remains.

The parent record in Listings wasn't saving correctly because i didn't have an `active` field in the form (facepalm). Corrected that. Still having trouble with the date field, kinda frustrated there. But to the point...

When i save my data, i'm now getting a record in Listings. Yay! But the associated data in ListingsAttrs is still not there. Boo!

Current structure of ListingsAttrs POST data:

[listings_attrs] => Array (
    [4] => Array (
        [attr_id] => 4
    )
    [1] => Array (
        [attr_id] => 1
        [value] => Off-street
    )
)

Which now gives me this in the $listing Entity:

"listings_attrs": {
    "4": {
        "attr_id": "4"
    },
    "1": {
        "attr_id": "1",
        "value": "Off-street"
    }
}

This is progress! The associated data wasn't in previous debug data.

So what am i still missing that it won't save that data? Remember, `value` is optional to the data record, it's controlled by the UI. So both of those records should be valid. Why then is neither of them being saved?

Any additional help here is appreciated.
-joe t.


On Monday, 22 December 2014 22:54:12 UTC-5, Joe T. wrote:

Sorry this took several days to respond, i was sick all weekend, didn't get anywhere near my computer.

i changed the names of the inputs from listingsattrs >> listings_attrs as you recommended (no clue how i missed that to begin with). My POST data now looks exactly as it did before, except for the name of that particular item. However, the log output for the $listing entity is still missing the associated ListingsAttrs data.

The ListingsAttrs Entity didn't have a $_accessible array, so i added a default:

$_accessible = [
  '*' => true
];

The controller code looks like:

$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data);

/* i've also tried:
$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data, ['associated' => ['ListingsAttrs']]);
$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data, ['associated' => ['ItemAttrs']]);
$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data, ['associated' => ['ListingsAttrs.ItemAttrs']]);
$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data, ['associated' => ['ItemAttrs.ListingsAttrs']]);
*/

if ($this->Listings->save($listing)) {
  // etc.
}
else {
  throw new Exception...
}

What else can i try? i appreciate the help.
-joe

On Friday, 19 December 2014 11:29:12 UTC-5, José Lorenzo wrote:

You should post a property called listings_attrs, check your entity $_accessible array to make sure the property is also writable with request data.

On Friday, December 19, 2014 6:29:43 AM UTC+1, Joe T. wrote:

i've seen a couple similar threads about this, but not my exact problem.

i'm trying to follow the guide here: http://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/saving-data.html#converting-request-data-into-entities and coming up short. i'm not getting any errors (except a date field that constantly fails if it has a value, separate issue)...so i have no idea what's happening to the data i submit, or why it isn't saved to the DB.

My raw response data logged to Cake Debug is:

Array (
  [title] => '123 Main St'
  [street] => '123 Main St'
  [lot_no] => 1
  [lat] =>
  [lng] =>
  [city] => 'Hometown'
  [county] =>
  [state] => 'MI'
  [zip] => '49000'
  [area] => 900    
  [bedrooms] => 2    
  [bathrooms] => 1    
  [price] => 525    
  [ready_date] =>
  [listingsattrs] => Array (
    [4] => Array (
      [id] => 4
    )
    [1] => Array (
      [id] => 1
      [value] => 'Off-street'
    )
  )
  [park_id] => 1
  [house_condition_id] => 3
  [house_style_id] => 2
  [term_id] => 2
  [info_body] => '<p>Live here. It&#39;s great!</p>'
)

i have tables Listings, ItemAttrs, and ListingsAttrs. In ListingsTable, the relationship is defined as:

$this->addAssociations([
  'belongsToMany' => [
    'ItemAttrs' => [
      'targetForeignKey' => 'attr_id',
      'through'          => 'ListingsAttrs',
      'saveStrategy'     => 'replace',
  ]
])'

Some attributes are required to have a value when assigned to a Listing (or other parent object they can be assigned to with a similar relationship). When a requires-value attribute is selected for the (in this case) Listing, a text field is shown & marked as required. The value is stored in the ListingsAttrs record with the Listing ID and ItemAttr ID.

When i submit the form, the correct attribute data is there. But it gets lost when i generate the Entity:

$listing = $this->Listings->newEntity($this->request->data, [
  'associated' => ['ListingsAttrs']
]);

Log of $listing:

{
  "title": "123 Main St",
  "street": "123 Main St",
  "lot_no": "1",
  "lat": null,
  "lng": null,
  "city": "Hometown",
  "county": null,
  "state": "MI",
  "zip": "49000",
  "area": 900,
  "bedrooms": 2,
  "bathrooms": 1,
  "price": 525,
  "ready_date": null,
  "park_id": 1,
  "house_condition_id": 3,
  "house_style_id": 2,
  "term_id": 2,
  "info_body": "<p>Live here. It&#39;s great!<\/p>\r\n"
}

i've tried creating the Listings entity without 'associated' at all, as 'associated' => 'ListingsAttrs', and 'associated' => 'ItemAttrs'

i'm trying to understand this ORM, because it looks like it should be very automated & easy to use. (By comparison, has anyone here used ZF1's ORM? Yikes.) But i don't know what i'm doing wrong here. It seems like i'm following the guide, but i'm obviously mixing something up.

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