CakePHP 2.5 habtm does not save

Question

I know there is a lot of questions with this specific problem and there are examples in the official documentation. But I could not find out what I am doing wrong.

I have two Model with a HABTM relation, but apparently it is not saving anything in the join and final table. These are my tables, models and array I am trying to save.

Tables:

champions table:

CREATE TABLE `champions` (
 `id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
 `key` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
 .
 .
 .
 `created` datetime NOT NULL,
 `modified` datetime NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

champions_tags table:

CREATE TABLE `champions_tags` (
 `id` int(11) NOT NULL,
 `champion_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
 `tag_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

tags table:

CREATE TABLE `tags` (
 `id` int(11) NOT NULL,
 `type` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
 `created` datetime NOT NULL,
 `modified` datetime NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

Models:

Champion.php

public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
    'Tag'   =>  array(
                'foreignKey'            =>  'champion_id',
                'associationForeignKey' =>  'tag_id',
                'unique'                =>  'keepExisting'
     )
);

Tag.php

    public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
        'Tag'  =>  array(
            'foreignKey'            =>  'tag_id',
            'associationForeignKey' =>  'champion_id',
            'unique'                =>  'keepExisting'
        )
    );

Finally this is the info I am trying to save and spread to tags table

    Array
    (
        [Champion] => Array
            (
                .
                .
                .
                [Tag] => Array
                    (
                        [0] => Array
                            (
                                [id] => 2660
                                [type] => Fighter
                            )

                        [1] => Array
                            (
                                [id] => 2661
                                [type] => Tank
                            )

                    )

            )
    )

chadrien chadrien · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24T23:26:12

In CakePHP 2.x, HABTM is tricky. It's never easy to get how it work, especially when it comes to saving the data.

For your case, your data should look like this :

<?php
$this->Champion->save([
    'Champion' => [
        'key' => 'championKey',
    ],
    'Tag' => [
        'Tag' => [2660, 2661],
    ],
]);

What if you want to associate a tag that don't exists yet? You have to created it first, then add its id to the $data['Tag']['Tag'] list.

You can in the same time save a champion and create a new tag, but unfortunately it has to be done one by one :

<?php
$this->Champion->save([
    'Champion' => [
        'id' => 1,
    ],
    'Tag' => [
        'type' => 'new type 1',
    ]
]);
$this->Champion->save([
    'Champion' => [
        'id' => 2,
    ],
    'Tag' => [
        'type' => 'new type 2',
    ]
]);
$this->Champion->save([
    'Champion' => [
        'id' => 2,
    ],
    'Tag' => [
        'type' => 'new type 3',
    ]
]); // /!\ Champion #2 is not tagged with 'new type 2' anymore!

You can find all those informations in the docs :)

CakePHP 2.5 habtm does not save

1 Answers