Saving “many-to-many” in Yii2 through behavior

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If you had to work with Yii2 sure there was a situation when it was necessary to keep communication “many-to-many”.

When it became clear that the network has no behaviors to work with this type of connection, then the correct code was written at the event «after save» and with a warning “works well also” went to the repository.

Personally, I am not satisfied with such a disposition of events. I decided to write something very magical behavior, which is so lacking in the official assembly Yii2.

Installation

Install through the Composer:

php composer.phar require --prefer-dist voskobovich/yii2-many-many-behavior "*"

Or add into composer.json of your project to the section «require»:

"voskobovich/yii2-many-many-behavior": "*"

Execute:

~$ php composer.phar update

Source: yii2-many-many-behavior.

How to use?

Connecting the behavior in the desired model ActiveRecord:

public function behaviors()
{
    return [
        [
            'class' => \voskobovich\behaviors\ManyToManyBehavior::className(),
            'users_list' => 'users',
            'tasks_list' => [
                'tasks',
                'get' => function($value) {
                    return JSON::decode($value);
                },
                'set' => function($value) {
                    return JSON::encode($value);
                },
             ]
        ],
    ];
}

This example describes two connections:

1. Communication «users» will receive and store the primary keys in the properties of the model «users_list».
2. Communication «tasks» respectively «tasks_list». At the same time, for a given connection are indicated handlers «set» and «get» which process data before saving the communication and output in the field.

Please note that the properties of «users_list» and «tasks_list» will appear in the model automatically!

Next, add fields in the form of creating/edit:

<?= $form->field($model, 'users_list')
      ->dropDownList(ArrayHelper::map(User::find()->all(), 's_id', 'name'), ['multiple' => true]) ?>

and allow them to update through mass assignment by adding validation rules:

public function rules()
{
    return [
        [['users_list', 'tasks_list'], 'safe']
    ];
}

or you can work with new properties directly:

$model->users_list = [2,5,6,7];

After these manipulations links will be updated automatically.

From the properties of «users_list» and «tasks_list» you can also get an array of primary keys stored on communication models.

print_r($model->users_list);

Returns an array of primary keys stored on the communication «users».

It is worth saying that the formation of a list of primary keys happens only at the moment of the call of reading properties.

Thank you for your attention!

This text is a translation of the article “Сохранение “много ко многим” в Yii2 через поведение” by rafic published on habrahabr.ru.

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