Cannot associate user role with user - cakephp

Question

I have a list of existing user roles in database for example like this:
+----+-------+-----------+
| id | level | label |
+----+-------+-----------+
| 1 | 0 | admin |
| 2 | 1 | moderator |
| 3 | 2 | blogger |
+----+-------+-----------+
And I would like to attach a role to a user when its created. What I've tried is following:
In my BcUsersController:
$bcUser = $this->BcUsers->patchEntity($bcUser, $this->request->data,
[
'associated' => [
'BcUserInfos',
'BcUserRoles'
]
]
);
if ($this->BcUsers->save($bcUser))...
Associations:
//BcUserRolesTable
$this->belongsToMany('BcUsers', [
'className' => 'BcUsers',
'foreignKey' => 'role',
'propertyName' => 'BcUserRoles'
]);
//BcUsersTable
$this->hasMany('BcUserRoles', [
'className' => 'BcUserRoles',
'foreignKey' => 'id',
'bindingKey' => 'role',
'propertyName' => 'BcUserRoles',
'joinTable' => 'bc_user_roles'
]);
And this is how I try to inject userRoleId into a user table:
<?= $this->Form->input('BcUserRoles.level', ['type' => 'hidden', 'value' => '0']); ?>
or
<?= $this->Form->input('BcUserRoles.id', ['type' => 'hidden', 'value' => '1']); ?>
When I try to save it gives me no error just refreshes a page and with post data inside fields. If I remove all the associations code, it saves user + userInfo. What am I missing here?
EDIT
I just found an error in my $bcUser variable:
'[errors]' => [
'role' => [
'_required' => 'This field is required'
]
],
And I think thats why it does not save BcUser, but also userRole associations is empty:
'BcUserRoles' => [],
so it wouldnt save userRole to user table even if I would would remove
->requirePresence('role', 'create') from BcUsersTable, would it ?
Just tested. It throws me SQL error because role isnt in query parameters and in database it has to be there, null is not allowed. All users should have a role.

Answer 1

Looks like there are a couple issues here.
Associations
If BcUsersTable contains the foreign key for BcUserRoles then is it a belongsTo relationship.
belongsTo: the current model contains the foreign key.
http://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/associations.html#belongsto-associations
Equally this would also mean that BcUserRoles has a hasMany relationship to BcUsers not a belongsTo relationship.
hasMany: the other model contains the foreign key.
http://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/associations.html#hasmany-associations
Post data
I assume that the foreign key for BcUserRolesTable in the BcUsersTable is role. That means you will need to submit a value for role that is the id of the user role you wish to associate.
The following would create a form element to do that:
$this->Form->input('role', ['type' => 'hidden', 'value' => $useRoleId])
Where $userRoleId is the id of the role you wish to associate.

Answer 2

Try updating your belongsTo Relations
$this->belongsTo('BcUsers', [
'className' => 'BcUsers',
'foreignKey' => 'role',
'bindingKey' => 'id',
'propertyName' => 'BcUserRoles'
]);
make it
$this->belongsTo('BcUserRoles', [
'className' => 'BcUsers',
'foreignKey' => 'role',
'bindingKey' => 'id',
]);
Hope your problem will be solved