Cakephp 3 - Save associated belongsToMany (joinTable) - php

Question

i have a question about saving a new entity with an association which is a belongsToMany relation. Just a quick introduction. I have something like a settings table and a setting_values table. The user is connected to the settings by a joinTable called users_settings. So in summary:
settings:
id | name
setting_values:
id | setting_id | name | value |
users_settings:
id | user_id | setting_id | setting_value_id
Now before the user is added I want to patch the entity of the user with all settings and the first setting_value for each setting. So that users_settings has now all settings connected to the user with the first value. But I can't get the patch or the newEntity to be work. All models are baked so this should be fine. Here's my code
$settings = $this->Settings->find('all', [
'contain' => [
'SettingValues'
]
]);
$settingsData = [];
foreach ($settings as $setting) {
$settingsData[] = [
'setting_id' => $setting->id,
'setting_value_id' => $setting->setting_values[0]->id,
];
}
$data = [
'users_settings' => $settingsData
];
$user = $this->Users->patchEntity($user, $data, [
'associated' => [
'Settings.UsersSettings'
]
]);
This is the result in the $user entity. As you can see nothing is corretly marshaled:
users_settings => [
(int) 0 => [
setting_id => (int) 1,
setting_value_id => (int) 1
],
(int) 1 => [
setting_id => (int) 2,
setting_value_id => (int) 5
]
]
Can someone give me an advice on this. Thanks

Answer 1

That's not how belongsToMany association data should be structured, you have to supply the target, not the join table. Additional join table data can be supplied via the special _joinData key, ie the data should look like:
$data = [
'settings' => [
[
'id' => 1,
'_joinData' => [
'setting_value_id' => 1
]
],
[
'id' => 2,
'_joinData' => [
'setting_value_id' => 5
]
]
]
];
That would populate the join table like:
+----+---------+------------+------------------+
| id | user_id | setting_id | setting_value_id |
+----+---------+------------+------------------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
+----+---------+------------+------------------+
And if you (need to) use the associated option, then make sure to specify the _joinData key too:
$user = $this->Users->patchEntity($user, $data, [
'associated' => [
'Settings._joinData'
]
]);
See also
Cookbook > Database Access & ORM > Saving Data > Saving BelongsToMany Associations
Cookbook > Database Access & ORM > Saving Data > Saving Data To The Join Table