Yii2 active record model not saving data

Question

I've built a simple form model & view, a simple AR model, and a simple controller. The form model assigns the correct values to the AR instance, but when I call save(), none of those values are saved in the DB. Any ideas?

The form model:

<?php

namespace app\models;

use Yii;
use yii\base\Model;

class PromptForm extends Model
{
    public $name;
    public $intro;
    public $prompt;
    public $notes;
    public $questions;


    public function attributeLabels()
    {
        return [
            'name' => 'Prompt title',
            'intro' => 'Intro',
            'prompt' => 'Prompt body',
            'notes' => 'Closing notes',
            'questions' => 'Exploration questions',
        ];
    }

    /**
     * @return array the validation rules.
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            [['name', 'prompt'], 'required'],
            ['name', 'filter', 'filter' => 'trim'],
            ['name', 'string', 'max' => 255],
            [['intro', 'prompt', 'notes', 'questions'], 'default'],
        ];
    }

    public function post()
    {
        if ($this->validate()) {
            $prompt = new Prompt();
            $prompt->name = $this->name;
            $prompt->intro = $this->intro;
            $prompt->prompt = $this->prompt;
            $prompt->notes = $this->notes;
            $prompt->questions = $this->questions;

            $prompt->author = \Yii::$app->user->getId();

            //die(print_r($prompt, TRUE));

            $prompt->save();

            return $prompt;
        }

        return null;
    }
}

The AR model:

<?php

namespace app\models;

use Yii;
use yii\db\ActiveRecord;

/**
 * Prompt is the model behind the prompt item.
 */
class Prompt extends ActiveRecord
{
    public $name;
    public $intro;
    public $prompt;
    public $notes;
    public $questions;
    public $status;
    public $author;

    public $id;

    /**
     * @return string the name of the table associated with this ActiveRecord class.
     */
    public static function tableName()
    {
        return 'prompt';
    }

    /**
     * @return array the attribute labels.
     */
    public function attributeLabels()
    {
        return [
            'name' => 'Prompt title',
            'intro' => 'Intro',
            'prompt' => 'Prompt body',
            'notes' => 'Closing notes',
            'questions' => 'Exploration questions',
            'status' => 'Status',
            'author' => 'Author ID',
        ];
    }
}

The controller:

<?php

namespace app\controllers;

use Yii;
use yii\filters\AccessControl;
use yii\web\Controller;
use yii\filters\VerbFilter;
use app\models\PromptForm;
use app\models\Prompt;

class PromptsController extends Controller
{
    public function actionIndex()
    {
        // Return a list of all prompts:
        return $this->render('index');
    }

    public function actionNew()
    {
        if (\Yii::$app->user->isGuest) {
            return $this->goHome();
        }

        $model = new PromptForm();
        if ($model->load(Yii::$app->request->post())) {
            if ($prompt = $model->post()) {
                Yii::$app->getSession()->setFlash('success', 'Your prompt was created successfully!');
                return $this->goHome();
            } else {
                Yii::$app->getSession()->setFlash('error', 'Error while submitting your prompt.');
            }
        }

        return $this->render('create', [
            'model' => $model,
        ]);
    }
}

Answer 1

Try

    if ($model->load(Yii::$app->request->post())) {
                if ($prompt = $model->post()) {
                    $model->save()
                    Yii::$app->getSession()->setFlash('success', 'Your prompt was created successfully!');
                    return $this->goHome();
                } else {
                    Yii::$app->getSession()->setFlash('error', 'Error while submitting your prompt.');
                }
            }

Answer 2

Okay, I figured it out. Turns out that if you declare public attributes in your ActiveRecord model, they obscure the automatic attributes that are created by AR. Data gets assigned to your obscuring attributes but doesn't get sent into the database.

The correct AR model should have been simply this:

<?php

namespace app\models;

use Yii;
use yii\db\ActiveRecord;

class Prompt extends ActiveRecord
{
    /**
     * @return string the name of the table associated with this ActiveRecord class.
     */
    public static function tableName()
    {
        return 'prompt';
    }
}

Answer 3

In controller, change your if condition as follow :

if ($prompt = $model->post() !== null) {

This will validate that the value which is return is not null.
Your current validation condition is only validating where value is get assigned to variable $prompt or not. And that's why it's always returns true.

Answer 4

I ran across the same problem recently, when I combine the Active Record class with The Model class. Cause I know that AR actually extends Model in Yii2. Why not write less code.So I move the code from the Model to the AR.

$model = new User();  
$model->load(Yii::$app->request->post())

But the AR's _attribute didn't get the post data in the form. the form data is actually in a Model object.

object(app\models\User)#39 (12) { ["password"]=> string(6) "google" ["newpass"]=> NULL ["name"]=> string(5) "Jane1" ["email"]=> string(16) "[e-mail]" ["_attributes":"yii\db\BaseActiveRecord":private]=> array(2) { ["password_hash"]=> string(60) "$2y$13$.vNKpmosLjW/oYAhIezOZOj8rIG6QJvQj8tGHN2x78.75poXVn6Yi" ["auth_key"]=> string(32) "4XggNakVd-oeU28ny7obdw7gOmZJ-Rbu" }

simply delete the public attribute you want mass assign to the AR instance will make it work.

Answer 5

Use

$prompt->save(false);

If that works that means that some validation rule fails.