A belongsToMany relationship is a many-to-many relationship. For instance, a User may have multiple Permissions while a Permission can belong to multiple Users.

// User.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" {

    function permissions() {
       return belongsToMany( "Permission" );
    }

}

// Permission.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" {

    function users() {
       return belongsToMany( "User" );
    }

}

The first value passed to belongsToMany is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

belongsToMany makes some assumptions about your table structure. To support a many-to-many relationship, you need a pivot table. This is, at its simplest, a table with each of the foreign keys as columns.

permissions_users
- permissionId
- userId

As you can see, Quick uses a convention of combining the entity table names in alphabetical order with an underscore (_) to create the new pivot table name. If you want to override this convention, you can do so by passing the desired table name as the second parameter or the table parameter.

// User.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" {

    function permissions() {
       return belongsToMany( "Permission", "user_permission_map" );
    }

}

Quick determines the foreign key of the relationship based on the entity name and key values. In this case, the User entity is assumed to have a userId foreign key and the Permission entity a permissionId foreign key. You can override this by passing a foreignKey in as the third argument and a relatedKey as the fourth argument:

return belongsToMany(
    "Permission",
    "user_permission_map",
    "FK_UserId",
    "FK_PermissionID"
);

Finally, if you are not joining on the primary keys of the current entity or the related entity, you can specify those keys using the last two parameters:

return belongsToMany(
    "Permission",
    "user_permission_map",
    "FK_UserId",
    "FK_PermissionID",
    "user_id",
    "permission_id"
);

The inverse of belongsToMany is also belongsToMany. The foreignKey and relatedKey arguments are swapped on the inverse side of the relationship.

// Permission.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" {

    function user() {
        belongsToMany( "User", "user_permission_map", "FK_PermissionID", "FK_UserId" );
    }

}

If you find yourself needing to interact with the pivot table (permissions_users) in the example above, you can create an intermediate entity, like UserPermission. You will still be able to access the end of the relationship chain using the hasManyThrough relationship type.

// User.cfc
component extends="quick.models.BaseEntity" {

    function userPermissions() {
        return hasMany( "UserPermission" );
    }

    function permissions() {
        return hasManyThrough( "Permission", "UserPermission" );
    }

}

attach

Use the attach method to relate two belongsToMany entities together. attach can take a single id, a single entity, or an array of ids or entities (even mixed and matched) to associate.

var post = getInstance("Post").findOrFail(1);

var tag = getInstance("Tag").create("miscellaneous");

// pass an id
post.tags().attach(tag.getId());
// or pass an entity
post.tags().attach(tag);

detach

Use the detach method to remove an existing entity from a belongsToMany relationship. detatch can also take a single id, a single entity, or an array of ids or entities (even mixed and matched) to remove.

var post = getInstance("Post").findOrFail(1);

var tag = getInstance("Tag").create("miscellaneous");

// pass an id
post.tags().detach(tag.getId());
// or pass an entity
post.tags().detach(tag);

sync

Sometimes you just want the related entities to be a list you give it. For these situations, use the sync method.

var post = getInstance("Post").findOrFail(1);

post.tags().sync([2, 3, 6]);

Now, no matter what relationships existed before, this Post will only have three tags associated with it.

Defining

A hasOne relationship is a "one-to-one" relationship. For instance, a User entity might have an UserProfile entity attached to it.

The first value passed to hasOne is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

Quick determines the foreign key of the relationship based on the entity name and key values. In this case, the UserProfile entity is assumed to have a userId foreign key. You can override this by passing a foreign key in as the second argument:

If your parent entity does not use id as its primary key, or you wish to join the child entity to a different column, you may pass a third argument to the belongsTo method specifying your parent table's custom key.

The inverse of hasOne is . It is important to choose the right relationship for your database structure. hasOne assumes that the related model has the foreign key for the relationship.

A belongsTo relationship is a many-to-one relationship. For instance, a Post may belong to a User.

The first value passed to belongsTo is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

Quick determines the foreign key of the relationship based on the entity name and key values. In this case, the Post entity is assumed to have a userId foreign key. You can override this by passing a foreign key in as the second argument:

If your parent entity does not use id as its primary key, or you wish to join the child entity to a different column, you may pass a third argument to the belongsTo method specifying your parent table's custom key.

The inverse of belongsTo is or .

Updating

To update a belongsTo relationship, use the associate method. associate takes the entity to associate as the only argument.

Note: associate does not automatically save the entity. Make sure to call save when you are ready to persist your changes to the database.

Removing

To remove a belongsTo relationship, use the dissociate method.

Note: dissociate does not automatically save the entity. Make sure to call save when you are ready to persist your changes to the database.

Defining

A hasMany relationship is a one-to-many relationship. For instance, a User may have multiple Posts.

The first value passed to hasMany is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

Quick determines the foreign key of the relationship based on the entity name and key values. In this case, the Post entity is assumed to have a userId foreign key. You can override this by passing a foreign key in as the second argument:

If your parent entity does not use id as its primary key, or you wish to join the child entity to a different column, you may pass a third argument to the belongsTo method specifying your parent table's custom key.

The inverse of hasMany is also .

Inserting & Updating

save

You can call the save method on the relationship passing in an entity to relate.

This will add the User entity's id as a foreign key in the Post and save the Post to the database.

Note: the save method is called on the posts relationship, not the getPosts collection.

create

Use the create method to create and save a related entity directly through the relationship.

This example will have the same effect as the previous example.

Removing

A hasManyThrough relationship is a many-to-many relationship. It is used when you want to access a related entity through another entity. The most common example for this is through a pivot table. For instance, a User may have multiple Permissions via a UserPermission entity. This allows you to store additional data on the UserPermission entity, like a createdDate .

The first value passed to hasManyThrough is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

The second value passed is a WireBox mapping to the intermediate entity.

Quick determines the foreign key of the relationship based on the entity name and key values. In this case, the Permission entity is assumed to have a permissionId foreign key. You can override this by passing a foreign key in as the third argument:

The secondKey is also determined by Quick. It is the foreign key of the current entity for the intermediate entity's table. In our example, this would be userId, since User is our entity and it is for the UserPermissions table. You can override this by passing in the secondKey as the fourth argument.

Lastly, the localKey and secondLocalKey are the primary keys of the entity and the intermediate entities. Usually this is just id. You can override these as the fifth and sixth argument.

The inverse of hasManyThrough is also hasManyThrough. A note that the intermediate entity would use belongsTo relationships to link back to each side of the hasManyThrough relationship. These relationships are not needed to use a hasManyThrough relationship.

A polymorphicBelongsTo relationship is a many-to-one relationship. This relationship is used when an entity can belong to multiple types of entities. The classic example for this type of relationship is Posts, Videos, and Comments. For instance, a Comment may belong to a Post or a Video.

The only value passed to polymorphicBelongsTo is a prefix for the polymorphic type. A common convention where is to add able to the end of the entity name, though this is not automatically done. In our example, this prefix is commentable. This tells quick to look for a commentable_type and a commentable_id column in our Comment entity. It stores our entity's mapping as the _type and our entity's primary key value as the _id.

When retrieving a polymorphicBelongsTo relationship the _id is used to retrieve a _type from the database.

The inverse of polymorphicBelongsTo is also polymorphicHasMany. It is important to choose the right relationship for your database structure. hasOne assumes that the related model has the foreign key for the relationship.

A polymorphicHasMany relationship is a one-to-many relationship. This relationship is used when an entity can belong to multiple types of entities. The classic example for this type of relationship is Posts, Videos, and Comments.

The first value passed to polymophicHasMany is a WireBox mapping to the related entity.

The second value is a prefix for the polymorphic type. A common convention where is to add able to the end of the entity name, though this is not automatically done. In our example, this prefix is commentable. This tells quick to look for a commentable_type and a commentable_id column in our Comment entity. It stores our entity's mapping as the _type and our entity's primary key value as the _id.

The inverse of polymophicHasMany is polymorphicBelongsTo.