Saving associated model data that needs to be unique - php

Question

I have built a CakePHP app that allows a user to create posts and add tags (topics) to them. The structure of the database and associations can be seen here: Setting up contains for a join table in CakePHP
I have managed to successfully pull the data out using Contain via the join table. But now I'm trying to build the part where a user enters a topic and then save it BOTH in the Topic Table and the Topic_post table.
I have the following code my add new post method:
if ($this->request->is('post'))
{
//$this->Post->create();
if ($this->Post->save($this->request->data))
{
// Save extra data
$this->Post->saveField('user_id', $this->Auth->user('id'));
$this->Post->saveField('datetime', date('Y-m-d H:i:s'));
$this->Post->saveField('modified', date('Y-m-d H:i:s'));
$this->Post->saveField('status', 1);
// Build slug
$post_title = Sanitize::html($this->request->data['Post']['title'], array('remove'=>true, 'quotes' => ENT_NOQUOTES));
$post_title = String::truncate($post_title, 50, array('exact'=>false,'html'=>false,'ending'=>''));
$this->Post->saveField('slug', Inflector::slug($post_title));
// Redirect the user to the newly created post (pass the slug for performance)
$this->redirect(array('controller'=>'posts','action'=>'view','id'=>Tiny::toTiny($this->Post->id),'slug'=>$this->Post->slug));
}
else
{
$this->Session->setFlash('Server broke!');
}
}
So what I need to do now is save the related Topic data which is typed in here in the view:
<?php echo $this->Form->create(); ?>
<?php echo $this->Form->input('Post.title'); ?>
<?php echo $this->Form->input('Post.content', array('type'=>'textarea','label'=>false)); ?>
<?php echo $this->Form->input('Topic.title', array('type'=>'textarea','label'=>'Topics')); ?>
<button type="submit" class="orangeButton small">Create</button>
<?php echo $this->Form->end(); ?>
I have looked at the CakePHP docs and it seems something like saveAll is what I need? But I'm confused as I'm not 100% sure how to use it also it's important to note that a user can save more than one topic to the database and the topics themselves are all unique so for example you can't create a topic that already exists it would instead just use the existing id for the linker.
Can anyone help? As I feel this is rather complex...

Answer 1

You could do something like:
$this->Post->saveAll($this->data, array('validate'=>'first'));
The use of array('validate'=>'first'); ensures that both of our models are validated before saving. Did you mean something like that.
Hope it helps