# Not able to Edit with Associations

**URL:** <https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908>\
**Category:** Need Help\
**Created:** [November 15, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908 "2021-11-15T16:37:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![itsfrancisnadal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@itsfrancisnadal](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/itsfrancisnadal)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/1 "2021-11-15T16:37:14Z")

</div>

I have an Fbpage Table, Keywords Table, and Fbpagekeywords Table. fbpages can be connected to multiple keywords, and keywords can be connected to multiple fbpages, I store the connection id in the Fbpagekeywords table. I can already add an Fbpage with multiple keywords, and I can add keywords with multiple fbpages. My problem is when editing, when I click submit, it doesn’t update the already saved data, it adds another batch of rows instead.

This is my Fbpage/edit.php

```auto
<h1>Edit FB Page</h1>

<?php

  echo $this->Form->create($fbpage);
  echo $this->Form->control('page_title', ['label' => 'Facebook Page Title']);
  echo $this->Form->control('page_url', ['label' => 'Facebook Page URL']);
  echo $this->Form->control('pageid', ['label' => 'Facebook Page ID']);
  echo '<label for="fb_caption">Facebook Access Token</label>' . $this->Form->textarea('fb_access_token', ['rows' => '15', 'cols' => '5']);
  echo '<label class="article-fb-caption">Assign keywords to Facebook Page:</label>';
  echo '<div class="article-fb-selection">';
?>

<?php
  foreach($keywords as $index => $keyword) :
    $checked = false;
    foreach($fbpage->fbpagekeywords as $page_keyword_item) {
      if($page_keyword_item['keyword_id'] === $keyword['id']) {
        $checked = true;
        // echo $page_keyword_item->keyword;
      } 
    }
  // pr($fbpage)
  // echo $keyword->keyword;
?>

<?php

  echo '<span class="fb-keyword-option">' 
        . $this->Form->checkbox( 'fbpagekeywords.'.$index.'.keyword_id',
          ['value' => $keyword['id'],
           'hiddenField' => false,
           'checked' => $checked
          ]) 
        . $keyword->keyword . '</span>';
  
  endforeach;

  echo "</div>";

  echo '<span class="create-btn">' . $this->Form->button(__('Update')) . '</span>';
  echo $this->Form->end();

?>

```

This is my FBpage edit controller

```auto
public function edit($id) {
    $this->loadModel('Fbpagekeywords');
    $this->loadModel('Keywords');
    $keywords = $this->Keywords->find('all')->order(['keyword' => 'ASC']);
    $fbpage_keywords = $this->Fbpagekeywords->find('all');

    $associated = ['Fbpagekeywords'];
    $Fbpages = $this->getTableLocator()->get('Fbpages');
    $fbpage = $Fbpages->get($id, ['contain' => $associated]);

    if ($this->request->is(['post', 'put'])) {

      $this->Fbpages->patchEntity($fbpage, $this->request->getData(), ['associated' => 'Fbpagekeywords']);
      if ($this->Fbpages->save($fbpage)) {
          $this->Flash->success(__('Facebook Page has been updated.'));
          return $this->redirect(['action' => 'index']);
      }
      $this->Flash->error(__('Unable to update the Facebook Page.'));
    }

    $this->set(compact('fbpage', 'keywords'));
  }

```

this is the result when i ran

```auto
debug($this->Fbpages->patchEntity($fbpage, $this->request->getData(), ['associated' => 'Fbpagekeywords']));

```

```auto
APP/Controller\FbpagesController.php (line 95)
object(App\Model\Entity\Fbpage) id:0 {
'id' => (int) 18
'page_title' => 'test empty keywords'
'page_url' => 'test empty keywords'
'pageid' => 'awdawd'
'fb_access_token' => 'awdawd'
'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) id:1 { }
'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) id:2 { }
'fbpagekeywords' => [
(int) 0 => object(App\Model\Entity\Fbpagekeyword) id:3 {
'keyword_id' => (int) 40
'[new]' => true
'[accessible]' => []
'[dirty]' => []
'[original]' => []
'[virtual]' => []
'[hasErrors]' => false
'[errors]' => []
'[invalid]' => []
'[repository]' => 'Fbpagekeywords'
},
(int) 1 => object(App\Model\Entity\Fbpagekeyword) id:4 {
'keyword_id' => (int) 42
'[new]' => true
'[accessible]' => []
'[dirty]' => []
'[original]' => []
'[virtual]' => []
'[hasErrors]' => false
'[errors]' => []
'[invalid]' => []
'[repository]' => 'Fbpagekeywords'
},
(int) 2 => object(App\Model\Entity\Fbpagekeyword) id:5 {
'keyword_id' => (int) 35
'[new]' => true
'[accessible]' => []
'[dirty]' => []
'[original]' => []
'[virtual]' => []
'[hasErrors]' => false
'[errors]' => []
'[invalid]' => []
'[repository]' => 'Fbpagekeywords'
},
(int) 3 => object(App\Model\Entity\Fbpagekeyword) id:6 {
'keyword_id' => (int) 53
'[new]' => true
'[accessible]' => []
'[dirty]' => []
'[original]' => []
'[virtual]' => []
'[hasErrors]' => false
'[errors]' => []
'[invalid]' => []
'[repository]' => 'Fbpagekeywords'
},
]
'[new]' => false
'[accessible]' => []
'[dirty]' => []
'[original]' => []
'[virtual]' => []
'[hasErrors]' => false
'[errors]' => []
'[invalid]' => []
'[repository]' => 'Fbpages'
}

```

we’re spending way too much time trying to solve it and we really need some help. thank you

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/2 "2021-11-15T17:11:25Z")

</div>

So, when you edit, you want the new list of keywords to completely replace the old list? Check out the `saveStrategy` setting on your association between those two tables, you want `replace` instead of `append`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![itsfrancisnadal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@itsfrancisnadal](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/itsfrancisnadal)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/3 "2021-11-15T17:14:36Z")

</div>

Hi, thank you very much for your reply! I was about to call it a day and I’m glad I checked this thread. I will be checking it now and will be back. Once again, thank you for your reply!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![itsfrancisnadal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@itsfrancisnadal](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/itsfrancisnadal)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/4 "2021-11-15T17:49:05Z")

</div>

Hi Zuluru,

I’ve updated the saveStrategy in the tables and it seems to be working now as we’d like. But we have another problem though, this is still the same problem but it’s regarding with Articles and FBpages. You see we’re currently trying to match articles to which fb pages should they be shared using keywords. So we have this table called Fbpageposts that holds article\_id, keyword\_id, and page\_id. When we run our keyword match making function, those articles with a keyword that corresponds to which fbpage are saved in this table along with the keyword\_ids. so the initial data is something like this:

## article\_id | keyword\_id | fbpage\_id

```
  1 | 1 | 1
  2 | 2 | 2
  1 | 3 | 1

```

if I edit article\_id 1, and assign it to an fbpage\_id 4 then edit and save, it’s not able to retain the keyword\_id of the previous data. is there a way where I can still replace but retain the data of a column?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/5 "2021-11-15T22:23:56Z")

</div>

So, Fbpageposts is your join table. Does it have a plain “id” field in addition to these other three fields? Any other fields in there that are going to throw in further wrinkles?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![itsfrancisnadal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@itsfrancisnadal](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/itsfrancisnadal)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 6:20am UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/6 "2021-11-16T06:20:48Z")

</div>

Hello Zuluru, Fbpagepost table indeed has its own id field. No more other fields/columns in this table.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 2:18pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/7 "2021-11-16T14:18:24Z")

</div>

Then you would probably want to include either the `id` or the `keyword_id` field in your form as a hidden value when you’re editing. In the former case, you might not need to use `replace` save strategy, as you’ll be editing an existing join record, but it’s potentially problematic in terms of things like the `accessible` setting or general security (if you don’t 100% trust all your users).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![itsfrancisnadal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/848f3c/32.png) [@itsfrancisnadal](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/itsfrancisnadal)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/8 "2021-11-16T14:33:28Z")

</div>

Hello, Zuluru. Thank you very much for your input. We’ve thought of this too, but we’ve decided to create another table that will hold the article\_id and fbpage\_id. The fbpageposts table will just hold the article\_id, keyword\_id, and fbpage\_id and will be used whenever we have an article matched to a keyword and fbpage. This way, we can truly separate when we had to edit the article to which fbpage it is going to be shared to.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zuluru](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.cakephp.org/zuluru/32/1230_2.png) [@Zuluru](https://discourse.cakephp.org/u/Zuluru)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://discourse.cakephp.org/t/not-able-to-edit-with-associations/9908/9 "2021-11-16T14:51:03Z")

</div>

That does sound like probably a better, more representative data structure.