How to handle complex form with multiple models and tabular input in yii

Question

I've read a lot of documentation about how to handle models and forms in yii and I've found a solution that works for the case that I explain following, but the problem is that the code is complex to write and to maintain, so I'm looking for suggestions.

The case is the following: I need to save together two different models and a third model that is a tabular input (more instances of the same model).

For instance, I may want to save a Blog post (first model) with the author information (second model) and a list of references (third model, the tabular one).

I'd like to validate all of them via ajax in one step and save them transactionally.

I've read all of these link.

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/559/tabular-input-validating-and-saving-related-models/

multi model forms in yii

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/19/how-to-use-a-single-form-to-collect-data-for-two-or-more-models/

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/218/how-to-use-single-form-to-collect-data-for-two-or-more-models-cactiveform-and-ajax-validation-edition/

http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/form.table

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/362/how-to-use-multiple-instances-of-the-same-model-in-the-same-form/

http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php/topic/14082-transaction-on-multiple-ar/

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/559/tabular-input-validating-and-saving-related-models/

https://github.com/yiiext/with-related-behavior

The last link is interesting, but if someone has one best practice to share, I'll be thankful to him.

Answer 1

I think you are looking for something like this: http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/eadvancedarbehavior/

This is an extension that does exactly that you asking.

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Quoted from the link:

HAS_ONE and HAS_MANY

Suppose a User HAS_ONE Address and HAS_MANY Emails, and Address/Email BELONGS_TO User (both have the foreignkey column user_id).

So you can do now:

$blog = new Blog();    
$blog->author = $author; //the author model object
$blog->references = array( $references1, $references2, ... ) ; //reference model objects
$blog->save();

I think you understand how to setup the forms? Those links you send are pretty clear about it.