Clarification about behaviour

[lhasselb]

Hi there,

I just started using hasoneedit and I faced something which might be a feature or an issue.
Therefore the mysterious title ;-)

I followed your instructions to setup the related object fields on a separate tab within the back-end
and as long as I fill the fields with values everything works like a charm:
The related object gets created the relation is there and the fields are filled.
Perfect!

But as far as I don't fill anything to the fields the object still is created and even worse
every time I update the one using the related object with hasoneedit another one gets added.

I found ways to work around the problem with empty fields (by adding some defaults or onBeforeWrite) and one could add some validation to catch empty fields also.
But right now I have the impression that the feature of creating the related object no matter what
may also a be an issue in some cases ?

Cheers
Lars

[stevie-mayhew]

Hey @lhasselb - the creation of the objects even if they are empty is intended. I'm not sure about the updated fields creating a new object - can you provide an example where this happens?

[lhasselb]

Lets assume you have a (DataObject) Course with a Title, Content, Image and a Category. Beside that you have another (DataObject) called News. The Course object has a has_one relation and the fields for the News are displayed on a second tab called News within the Course using
$fields->addFieldsToTab('Root.News', HasOneEdit::getInlineFields($this, 'News'))

So far so good fields are displayed and as mentioned as long as you navigate to the mentioned tab and add some data (start simple just use a title field for the News object).

But if you don't validate the News object for an empty title or add a default the following happens:
a) an empty News object gets created (as you mentioned by intention)
b) whenever you update the Course object another empty News gets created

I can understand a)
but I am not sure for b)

I assume because the lines within the DataObjectExtension
foreach ($toWrite as $relationName => $obj) {
$obj->write();
$this->owner->setField("{$relationName}ID", $obj->ID);
}
will only add the required ID for objects with a valid change ($toWrite > 0) - not for empty fields - right?

Hope that helps to clarify.