SaveAll with CakePHP (part2)
Since the new beta release for CakePHP there is a nice feature called saveAll and, like the name says, it saves all model data in a form. What this means is that you don’t have to do nasty stuff in the controllers (like looping) and it saves related model data automagically!
Lets make a more advanced todo list to demonstrate.
Tables
Todo hasMany Tasks.
First we need a table named todos.
CREATE TABLE `todos` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`name` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 ;We also need a table tasks
CREATE TABLE `tasks` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`todo_id` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`name` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 ;Models
First we create the model todo (in /app/models/todo.php)
<?php
class Todo extends AppModel
{
var $name = 'Todo';
var $hasMany = array('Task', array('dependent'=>true));
}
?>Now we create the model task (in /app/models/task.php)
<?php
class Task extends AppModel
{
var $name = 'Task';
var $belongsTo = array('Todo');
}
?>Controller
Next we set up the tasks controller (in /app/controller/tasks_controller.php)
<?php
class TasksController extends AppController {
var $name = 'Tasks';
var $paginate = array('limit' => 50, 'page' => 1);
function index(){
$this->set('tasks', $this->paginate('Task'));
}
function add() {
if (!empty($this->data)) {
$this->cleanUpFields();
$this->Task->create();
if ($this->Task->saveAll($this->data)) {
$this->Session->setFlash('List saved');
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'), null, true);
} else {
$this->Session->setFlash('List could not be saved');
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'), null, true);
}
}
}
}
?>You can see that there is nothing different here except for the $this->Task->saveAll($this->data);
That is where most of the magic happens. The other magic is in the views, lets look at add.ctp
Views
(/app/views/tasks/add.ctp)
<div class="todos form">
<?php echo $form->create('Task');?>
<fieldset>
<legend><?php __('Add Todo');?></legend>
<?php
echo $form->input('Todo.name');
?>
</fieldset>
<fieldset>
<legend><?php __('Add Tasks for todo');?></legend>
<?php
echo $form->input('Task.name');
?>
</fieldset>
<?php echo $form->end('Submit');?>
</div>The result
If you try to save a task with a todo you get the following result:
4 INSERT INTO `todos` (`name`) VALUES ('My todo List')
5 SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID() AS insertID
6 INSERT INTO `tasks` (`todo_id`,`name`) VALUES (135,'My first task')As you can see, the following happens:
- The todo gets saved
- The insert id of the todo is retrieved from the database
- Now the task gets saved with the todo_id that was just retrieved from the database
The result is a successfully saved model Todo with one task attached to it.
