Saving id of hasOne association - cakephp

Question

I have a table that looks like this:
,====,==============,============,==========,
| id | contact_from | contact_to | message |
|====|==============|============|==========|
| 1 | 1 | 2 | some msg |
| 2 | 2 | 1 | reply |
'----'--------------'------------'----------'
I create a new row, doing this:
public function add()
{
$message = $this->Messages->newEntity();
if ($this->request->is('post') && $this->request->is('ajax')) {
$data = $this->request->getData();
$data['contact_to'] = (int)$data['contact_to'];
$data['contact_from'] = (int)$this->Auth->user('id');
$message = $this->Messages->patchEntity($message, $data);
if ($this->Messages->save($message)) {
echo json_encode(['status' => 'success']);
exit;
}
echo json_encode(['status' => 'error']);
exit;
}
}
And this is my hasOne association:
$this->hasOne('ContactFrom', [
'className' => 'Contacts',
'foreignKey' => 'id',
'bindingKey' => 'contact_from',
'joinType' => 'INNER',
'propertyName' => 'contact_from'
]);
$this->hasOne('ContactTo', [
'className' => 'Contacts',
'foreignKey' => 'id',
'bindingKey' => 'contact_to',
'joinType' => 'INNER',
'propertyName' => 'contact_to'
]);
As you can see, I pass an ID to a new row, however it saves everything, except the id's. When I debug($message) after the patchEntity call, it comes back like this:
object(App\Model\Entity\Message) {
'message' => 'asdfasdf',
'date_sent' => object(Carbon\Carbon) {},
'[new]' => true,
'[accessible]' => [
'contact_to' => true,
'contact_from' => true,
'message' => true,
],
'[dirty]' => [
'message' => true,
],
'[original]' => [],
'[virtual]' => [],
'[errors]' => [],
'[invalid]' => [],
'[repository]' => 'Messages'
}
It drops my ID's. I assume it's because I need to pass the Entity to it, but to save on db calls, how can I make it save the contact_to and contact_from id's to the table?

Answer 1

The names that you've choosen are causing a clash in the marshaller.
You cannot use the same name for the binding/foreign key and the property name, these two need to be different, as the former are ment to hold an identifier, and the latter is ment to hold either an entity, or an array that can be marshalled into an entity - neither of that applies to the value that you are passing, hence it will be discard.
You should ideally follow the CakePHP naming conventions, and append _id to your columns, ie name them contact_from_id and contact_to_id.
See also
Cookbook > CakePHP at a Glance > CakePHP Conventions > Database Conventions