Question

I’m using the Zend Framework database relationships for a couple of weeks now. My first impression is pretty good, but I do have a question related to inserting related data into multiple tables. For a little test application I’ve related two tables with each other by using a fuse table.

      +---------------+      +---------------+      +---------------+
      |     Pages     |      |     Fuse      |      |    Prints     |
      +---------------+      +---------------+      +---------------+
      | pageid        |      | fuseid        |      | printid       |
      | page_active   |      | fuse_page     |      | print_title   |
      | page_author   |      | fuse_print    |      | print_content |
      | page_created  |      | fuse_locale   |      | ...           |
      | ...           |      | ...           |      +---------------+
      +---------------+      +---------------+

Above is an example of my DB architecture

Now, my problem is how to insert related data to two separate tables and insert the two newly created ID’s into the fuse table at the same time. If someone could could maybe explain or give me a topic related tutorial. I would appreciate it!

Answer 1

I assume you got separate models for each table. Then simply insert stuff in Prints table, store returned ID in variable. Then insert stuff in Pages table and store returned ID in another varialble. Eventually insert data in your Fuse table. You do not need any “at the same time” (atomic) operation here. ID of newly inserted rows are returned by save() (I assume you use autoincrement fields for this).

$printsModel = new Application_Model_Prints();
$pagesModel = new Application_Model_Pages();
$fuseModel = new Application_Model_Fuse();

$printData = array('print_title'=>'foo',
              ...);
$printId = $printsModel->insert( $printData );

$pagesData = array('page_author'=>'bar',
              ...);
$pageId = $pagesModel->insert($pagesData);

$fuseData = array('fuse_page' => $pageId,
                  'fuse_print' => $printId,
                  ...);
$fuseId = $fuseModel->insert($fuseData);

thus is pseudo code, so you may want to move inserts into your models and do somoe i.e. normalisation etc.

I also suggest paying more attention to fields naming convention. It usually helps and now you got fuseid but also fuse_page. So it either should be fuse_id or fusepage (not to mention I suspect this field stores id so it would be fuse_page_id or fusepageid).