Cake 3: How to add new entity to database with primaryKey set? - cakephp

Question

I want to populate my database with 'flat' data extracted from an excel sheet. All records are provided as arrays (similar to $request->data) but have their primaryKeys set which values must be kept.
My code:
$imported = 0;
foreach ($data as $record) {
$entity = $table->findOrCreate([$table->primaryKey() => $record[$table->primaryKey()]]);
$entity = $table->patchEntity($entity, $record);
if ($table->save($entity)) {
$imported++;
}
}
The code works, but I'm wondering if there is a better solution?
To clarify: What I want is adding something like
[
['id' => 25, 'title'=>'some title'],
['id'=> 3, 'title' => 'some other title'],
['id' => 4356, 'title' => 'another title']
]
to my empty database. findOrCreate() does the job. But I think it shouldn't be necessary to test every record that it not already exists in database before inserting.

Answer 1

A common problem with records mysteriously losing some of the data being provided to a new Entity is that the Entity does not define the field(s) in question as _accessible.
Cake's BakeShell will skip the primary key fields when generating new Entity classes for you, for example:
<?php
namespace App\Model\Entity;
use Cake\ORM\Entity;
/**
* Widget Entity.
*/
class Widget extends Entity {
/**
* Fields that can be mass assigned using newEntity() or patchEntity().
*
* #var array
*/
protected $_accessible = [
// `id` is NOT accessible by default!
'title' => true,
];
}
There are a few ways to work around this.
You can modify your Entity class to make the id field permanently assignable:
protected $_accessible = [
'id' => true, // Now `id` can always be mass-assigned.
'title' => true,
];
Or you can adjust your call to newEntity() to disable mass assignment protection:
$entities = $table->newEntity($data, [
'accessibleFields' => ['id' => true],
]);
I've found the most important take-away when you're having issues with Cake 3 DB data is to double-check the Entity as soon as it's created or patched and compare it against your input data. You still need to have a sharp eye, but doing so would reveal that the Entities did not have their ->id property set at all even though $data defined them.

Answer 2

If you really only ever work with empty tables, then you can simply save the data straight away, no need to find and patch, just save with disabled existence check.
Also from looking at your code, the data seems to be in a format that can be turned into entities right away, so you may want to create them all at once.
$entities = $table->newEntities($data, [
// don't forget to restrict assignment one way or
// another when working with external input, for
// example by using the `fieldList` option
'fieldList' => [
'id',
'title'
]
]);
// you may want to check the validation results here before saving
foreach ($entities as $entity) {
if ($table->save($entity, ['checkExisting' => false])) {
// ...
}
// ...
}
See also
Saving Entities
Converting Request Data
Avoiding Property Mass Assignment Attacks
Calidating Data Before Building Entities