PersistRelatedData behavior for CakePHP

This plugin is for CakePHP 3.x and contains behavior that handles saving selected fields of related data (redundantly).

Installation

Update composer.json file to include this plugin

{
    "require": {
        "riesenia/persist-related-data": "~1.0"
    }
}

Load plugin in config/bootstrap.php

Plugin::load('PersistRelatedData');

Usage

Good example for using this behavior is Invoices model that is related to Contacts. You can provide select box with contacts and save only contact_id when creating new invoice. But when contact data are modified later, your invoice should be left intact.

Example below assumes the invoices table has fields contact_id, contact_name and contact_address, while the contacts table has fields name and address. When you save Invoice entity with provided contact_id, fields contact_name and contact_address will be filled automatically.

class InvoicesTable extends Table
{
    public function initialize(array $config)
    {
        parent::initialize($config);

        // add PersistRelatedData behavior
        $this->addBehavior('PersistRelatedData.PersistRelatedData', [
            'fields' => [
                'contact_name' => 'Contacts.name',
                'contact_address' => 'Contacts.address'
            ]
        ]);

        // associations
        $this->belongsTo('Contacts', [
            'foreignKey' => 'contact_id',
            'className' => 'Contacts'
        ]);
    }
}