The Joy of Colletion::appendNew()

[Jon Elofson]

I just discovered another Solar gem - Solar_Sql_Model_Collection::appendNew()
Up to now, I have been adding related records to an item by
interacting with the related model. For example, if I am adding a new
comment to a post, I would typically do something like this:

$comment = $this->_model->comments->fetchNew();
$data = $this->_request->post('comments', array());
$comment->load($data);
$comment->post_id = $post_id;
$comment->userid = $this->user->auth->handle;

if ($this->_isProcess('save')) {
    $comment->save();
    // yada yada yada.
}

This works great, but I just discovered that appendNew() can save a
some time and takes advantage of the benefits of models. I imagine
most of you already know this, but it was a revelation to me.
So instead of the above, you can do this instead:

// get the post based on id
$post = $this->_model->posts->fetch($post_id);

// A new related record, with preset data    
$comment = $post->comments->appendNew(array('userid'=>$this->user->auth->handle));
$data = $this->_request->post('comments', array());
// Load posted data in to the comment record
$comment->load($data);

// Save. Note that we save the $post, not the $comment.
if ($this->_isProcess('save')) {
        $post->save();
}
$this->form = $comment->newForm(array('comment'));

This works perfectly, complete with the correct form and form
validation based on the comments table.
All the related data (post_id, in this case) is automatically set.
This might not seem like a really big benefit, but I also experimented
with a many-to-many relationship. Imagine that posts and comments were
a many-to-many with a through table called posts_comments. The same
code above would create a new record in the comments table, plus the
required join record in the through table. Hard to beat, if you ask
me.

Jon
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[Paul M Jones-4]

On Sep 25, 2009, at 20:54 , Jon Elofson wrote:

> I just discovered another Solar gem -  
> Solar_Sql_Model_Collection::appendNew()
...

> This works great, but I just discovered that appendNew() can save a
> some time and takes advantage of the benefits of models. I imagine
> most of you already know this, but it was a revelation to me.
> So instead of the above, you can do this instead:
>
> // get the post based on id
> $post = $this->_model->posts->fetch($post_id);
>
> // A new related record, with preset data    
> $comment = $post->comments->appendNew(array('userid'=>$this->user-
> >auth->handle));
> $data = $this->_request->post('comments', array());
> // Load posted data in to the comment record
> $comment->load($data);
>
> // Save. Note that we save the $post, not the $comment.
> if ($this->_isProcess('save')) {
> $post->save();
> }
> $this->form = $comment->newForm(array('comment'));
>
> This works perfectly, complete with the correct form and form
> validation based on the comments table.
> All the related data (post_id, in this case) is automatically set.
> This might not seem like a really big benefit, but I also experimented
> with a many-to-many relationship. Imagine that posts and comments were
> a many-to-many with a through table called posts_comments. The same
> code above would create a new record in the comments table, plus the
> required join record in the through table. Hard to beat, if you ask
> me.

Jon -- thanks so much, I'm glad you like it and find it useful.  :-)


--

Paul M. Jones
http://paul-m-jones.com/




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