Could this problem with this find operation be a bug?

Need Help
1

Hi there,

I have a table “articles” with the following fields (id, parent_id, name, content)
Each article belongsTo ParentArticles and hasMany ChildArticles

The associations in the articles table:

public function initialize(array $config) 
{
	parent::initialize($config);
	$this->setTable('articles');
	$this->setPrimaryKey('id');
	$this->setDisplayField('name');
	
	//Behaviors
	$this->addBehavior('Timestamp');
	
	//Associations
	$this->belongsTo('ParentArticles', [
		'className' => 'Articles',
		'foreignKey' => 'parent_id'
	]);
	$this->hasMany('ChildArticles', [
		'className' => 'Articles',
		'foreignKey' => 'parent_id'
	]);
}

I have this data (in the right format of course) in the database:

[
{"id":"1","parent_id":null,"name":"Dummy article 1","summary":"Dummy article 1 summary","content":"Dummy article 1 content"},
{"id":"2","parent_id":"1","name":"Dummy article 2","summary":"Dummy article 2 summary","content":"Dummy article 2 content"},
{"id":"3","parent_id":"2","name":"Dummy article 3","summary":"Dummy article 3 summary","content":"Dummy article 3 content"}
]

When I do a find like this:

   $article = $this->Articles->find()->select([
			'id',
			'parent_id',
			'name',
			'summary',
			'content'
		])->where([
			'Articles.id'=>1
		])->contain([
			'ChildArticles'=>[
				'fields'=>['id','parent_id','name','summary','content'],
			],
		])->enableHydration(false)->first();

It produces this:

Array
(
    [id] => 1
    [parent_id] => 
    [name] => Dummy article 1
    [summary] => Dummy article 1 summary
    [content] => Dummy article 1 content
    [child_articles] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 2
                    [parent_id] => 1
                    [name] => Dummy article 2
                    [summary] => Dummy article 2 summary
                    [content] => Dummy article 2 content
                )

        )

)

And when I do this:

$article = $this->Articles->find()->select([
			'id',
			'parent_id',
			'name',
			'summary',
			'content'
		])->where([
			'Articles.id'=>1
		])->contain([
			'ChildArticles'=>[
				'fields'=>['id','parent_id','name','summary','content'],
				'ChildArticles'=>[
					'fields'=>['id','parent_id','name','summary','content'],
				],
			],
		])->enableHydration(false)->first();

I get this:

Array
(
    [id] => 1
    [parent_id] => 
    [name] => Dummy article 1
    [summary] => Dummy article 1 summary
    [content] => Dummy article 1 content
    [child_articles] => Array
        (
        )

)

Plus this error:

Undefined index: parent_id [ CORE\src\ORM\Association\Loader\SelectLoader.php , line 471 ]

But when the enableHydration(true) I no error but still no result for the child_articles.

The second find should find the article of ID 1 plus all the associated data but its failing. Not specifying the fields (or specifying like this Association.field) options in contain makes no difference to the outcome.

Am I doing something wrong somewhere or could this be a bug?

2

I had trouble setting up these self relationships the one time I used them.

I haven’t dug into all this code, but that second query’s ‘contain’:

])->contain([
    'ChildArticles'=>[
        'fields'=>['id','parent_id','name','summary','content'],
        'ChildArticles'=>[
            'fields'=>['id','parent_id','name','summary','content'],
        ],
    ],
])->enableHydration(false)->first();

I’d expect some kind of error. I think you’re saying to contain ChildArticle (the first one) in Article (a valid association) and ChildArticle (the second one) in ChildArticle. This association is not defined, so it seems a likely source of an error.