Question

When i use sync() method laravel do a lot of separate insert queries in my intermediate table like this:

INSERT INTO `tag_user` (`user_id`, `tag_id`) VALUES ('59', '60')
INSERT INTO `tag_user` (`user_id`, `tag_id`) VALUES ('59', '61')

I want it to do one multiple insert like this:

INSERT INTO `tag_user` (`user_id`, `tag_id`) VALUES ('59', '60'), ('59', '61')

Is it possible? I’m using MySql. It would be nice to have attach() method that will accept array as detach() method do. Did someone do this?

Answer 1

This is how i solved it:

My models

In my application each user has many tags(many to many realationship). It’s called toxi database schema.
My user table is called ‘users’, tags table is called ‘tags’. And intermediate table is called ‘tag_user’ that has ‘tag_id’ and ‘user_id’ columns.

User model:

class User extends \Eloquent 
{
    public static $timestamps = false;

    public function tags()
    {
          return $this->has_many_and_belongs_to('Models\Tag');
    }
}

Tag model:

class Tag extends \Eloquent 
{
    public static $timestamps = false;
}

How i replaced sync() method

This is how i forced laravel to do sync() method using multiple insert:

//$currentUser is a model loaded from database
//Like this: $currentUser = Auth::user();

$newLinks = array();
$idsToSync = array();

foreach ($tags as $tag)
{
    array_push($idsToSync, $tag->id);
}

//$currentUser->tags()->sync($idsToSync);

$currentIds = $currentUser->tags()->pivot()->lists('tag_id');

$idsToAttach = array_diff($idsToSync, $currentIds);

foreach ($idsToAttach as $value)
{
    $newLink = array(
                    'user_id' => $currentUser->id,
                    'tag_id' => $value
                     );

    $newLinks[] = $newLink;
}        

if (count($newLinks) > 0)
{
    \DB::table('tag_user')->insert($newLinks);
}

$idsToDetach = array_diff($currentIds, $idsToSync);

if (count($idsToDetach) > 0)
{
    $currentUser->tags()->detach($idsToDetach);
}

This code does one multiple insert instead of many single ones.