Similar interface to work with collection of models as with single model

[rob006]

Right now basic CRUD for model looks like this:

    public function actionCreate()
    {
        $model = new User();

        if ($model->load(Yii::$app->request->post()) && $model->save()) {
            return $this->redirect(['view', 'id' => $model->id]);
        } else {
            return $this->render('create', [
                'model' => $model,
            ]);
        }
    }

    public function actionUpdate($id)
    {
        $model = $this->findModel($id);

        if ($model->load(Yii::$app->request->post()) && $model->save()) {
            return $this->redirect(['view', 'id' => $model->id]);
        } else {
            return $this->render('update', [
                'model' => $model,
            ]);
        }
    }

    public function actionDelete($id)
    {
        $this->findModel($id)->delete();

        return $this->redirect(['index']);
    }

When we need to work with tabular input and handle multiple instances of the same model in single request, things get more complicated (and still there is no docs for it).

ModelCollection could provide wrappers that makes this similar to CRUD for single model:

    public function actionCreate()
    {
        $collection = (new PostCollection())->fill(Post::className(), 10);

        if ($collection->load(Yii::$app->request->post()) && $collection->save()) {
            return $this->redirect(['index']);
        } else {
            return $this->render('create', [
                'collection' => $collection,
            ]);
        }
    }

    public function actionUpdate($ids)
    {
        /* @var $collection PostCollection */
        $collection = $this->findModels($ids);

        if ($collection->load(Yii::$app->request->post()) && $collection->save()) {
            return $this->redirect(['index']);
        } else {
            return $this->render('update', [
                'collection' => $collection,
            ]);
        }
    }

    public function actionDelete($ids)
    {
        $this->findModels($ids)->delete();

        return $this->redirect(['index']);
    }

Related: https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/14727

[rob006]

Actually there are multiple issues which will be solved (or at least simplified) by this:

https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/10877 and https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/pull/10886 https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/10299 https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/pull/11271 https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/14727 https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/issues/7040

[Faryshta]

How would Collection::load() work on update? How will know which data belongs to each model? Or will it update the same data to all the found models?

[rob006]

How would Collection::load() work on update?

In the same way as Model::loadMultiple()? It relies on order, so models and form data should be in the same order.

We could make it more complicated and use IDs (which should be passed in form) for records matching (then we could magically remove missing and add new records by using load() and save() only), but I'm not sure that is should be part of basic implementation. Let's keep it simple at the beginning and extend in the future.

[Faryshta]

Sounds good. Then how about having collection implement yii\db\ActiveRecordInterface?