Yii2 Active Record Save Relations Behavior

Automatically validate and save related Active Record models.

Features

• Both hasMany() and hasOne() relations are supported
• Works with existing as well as new related models
• Composite primary keys are supported
• Only pure Active Record API is used so it should work with any DB driver

Installation

The preferred way to install this extension is through composer.

Either run

php composer.phar require --prefer-dist la-haute-societe/yii2-save-relations-behavior "*"

or add

"la-haute-societe/yii2-save-relations-behavior": "*"

to the require section of your composer.json file.

Configuring

Configure model as follows

use lhs\Yii2SaveRelationsBehavior\SaveRelationsBehavior;

class Project extends \yii\db\ActiveRecord
{
    use SaveRelationsTrait; // Optional

    public function behaviors()
    {
        return [
            'timestamp'     => TimestampBehavior::className(),
            'blameable'     => BlameableBehavior::className(),
            ...
            'saveRelations' => [
                'class'     => SaveRelationsBehavior::className(),
                'relations' => ['users', 'company']
            ],
        ];
    }

    public function transactions()
    {
        return [
            self::SCENARIO_DEFAULT => self::OP_ALL,
        ];
    }

    ...


    /**
     * @return ActiveQuery
     */
    public function getCompany()
    {
        return $this->hasOne(Company::className(), ['id' => 'company_id']);
    }

    /**
     * @return ActiveQuery
     */
    public function getProjectUsers()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(ProjectUser::className(), ['project_id' => 'id']);
    }

    /**
     * @return ActiveQuery
     */
    public function getUsers()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(User::className(), ['id' => 'user_id'])->via('ProjectUsers');
    }

}

Though not mandatory, it is highly recommended to activate the transactions for the owner model.

Usage

Every declared relations in the relations behavior parameter can now be set and saved as follow:

$project = new Project();
$project->name = "New project";
$project->company = Company::findOne(2);
$project->users = User::findAll([1,3]);
$project->save();

You can set related model by only specifying its primary key:

$project = new Project();
$project->name = "Another project";
$project->company = 2;
$project->users = [1,3];
$project->save();

You can even set related models as associative arrays like this:

$project = Project::findOne(1);
$project->company = ['name' => 'GiHub', 'description' => 'Awesome']; // Will create a new company record
// $project->company = ['id' => 3, 'name' => 'GiHub', 'description' => 'Awesome']; // Will update an existing company record
$project->save();

Attributes of the related model will be massively assigned using the `load() method. So remember to declare the according attributes as safe in the rules of the related model.

Notes:

• Related models are saved during the EVENT_BEFORE_VALIDATE event of the owner model. Transaction will start at this point according to the transactions() method of the model.
• Only newly created or changed related models will be saved.

See the PHPUnit tests for more examples.

Validation

Every declared related models will be validated prior to be saved. If any validation fails, for each related model attribute in error, an error associated with the named relation will be added to the owner model.

For hasMany() relations, the index of the related model will be used to identify the associated error message.

It is possible to specify the validation scenario for each relation by declaring an associative array in which the scenario key must contain the needed scenario value. For instance, in the following configuration, the links related records will be validated using the Link::SOME_SCENARIO scenario:

...
    public function behaviors()
    {
        return [
            'saveRelations' => [
                'class'     => SaveRelationsBehavior::className(),
                'relations' => ['company', 'users', 'links' => ['scenario' => Link::SOME_SCENARIO]]
            ],
        ];
    }  
...

Tips: For relations not involving a junction table by using the via() or viaTable() methods, you should remove the attributes pointing to the owner model from the 'required' validation rules to be able to pass the validations.

Note: If an error occurs for any reason during the saving process of related records in the afterSave event, a yii\db\Exception will be thrown on the first occurring error. An error message will be attached to the relation attribute of the owner model. In order to be able to handle these cases in a user-friendly way, one will have to catch yii\db\Exception exceptions.

Populate the model and its relations with input data

This behavior adds a convenient method to load relations models attributes in the same way that the load() method does. Simply call the loadRelations() with the according input data.

For instance:

$project = Project::findOne(1);
/**
 * $_POST could be something like:
 * [
 *     'Company'     => [
 *         'name' => 'YiiSoft'
 *     ],
 *     'ProjectLink' => [
 *         [
 *             'language' => 'en',
 *             'name'     => 'yii',
 *             'link'     => 'http://www.yiiframework.com'
 *         ],
 *         [
 *             'language' => 'fr',
 *             'name'     => 'yii',
 *             'link'     => 'http://www.yiiframework.fr'
 *         ]
 *     ]
 * ];
 */
$project->loadRelations(Yii::$app->request->post());

You can even further simplify the process by adding the SaveRelationsTrait to your model. In that case, a call to the load() method will also automatically trigger a call to the loadRelations() method by using the same data, so you basically won't have to change your controllers.