Seeding Issue

After doing some testing I found out that with the User model when I have it extend Eloquent it works but if I have it extend BaseModel which extends Eloquent then it doesn't work. What is the reason for this?

Are you specifying a constructor in User or BaseModel? post us the code for those models maybe?

Oh wow I'm not. That would be why. What constructors should I be doing in those?

You don't need to, but I just wanted to make sure they were correct if so. Have you confirmed that there are records inserted into the table by the UserSeeder?

Well I added the constructors which now its kind of in working condition however when I go to run a seeder I get this error message.

SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1062 Duplicate entry '' for key 'users_username_unique'

<?php

// Composer: "fzaninotto/faker": "v1.3.0"
use Faker\Factory as Faker;

class UsersTableSeeder extends Seeder {

    public function run()
    {    
        User::create([
            'first_name' => 'First',
            'last_name' => 'Last',
            'username' => 'myusername',
            'email_address' => 'myemail@gmail.com',
            'avatar' => 'Myava',
            'password' => Hash::make('changeme'),
            'role_id' => 4,
            'status_id' => 1
        ]);

        //create instanances for each fake user
        $faker = Faker::create();

        $roleIds = UserRole::lists('id');
        $statusIds = UserStatus::lists('id');

        foreach(range(1, 20) as $index)
        {
            User::create([
                'first_name' => $faker->firstName,
                'last_name' => $faker->lastName,
                'username' => $faker->username,
                'email_address' => $faker->freeEmail,
                'avatar' => $faker->lexify('????????'),
                'password' => Hash::make($faker->word),
                'role_id' => $faker->randomElement($roleIds),
                'status_id' => $faker->randomElement($statusIds)
            ]);
        }
    }

}

@xtremer360 if you don't need to define the constructors, there's no reason to have them. I was just asking if you had them on the overridden classes or not to help myself further diagnose the issue.

Well that took care of that issue but now its not putting in these values for the UserSeeder

Try removing the constructors from BaseModel and User to take us back to the original issue. Does the users table have records? (I know the seeder runs, but when you look at the table, confirm it has records)

When I run the seeder it gives me the error message about the poster_id from the beginning.

<?php

class User extends BaseModel implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {

    use UserTrait, RemindableTrait, SoftDeletingTrait;

    protected $fillable = ['first_name', 'last_name', 'username', 'avatar', 'role_id', 'status_id', 'email_address', 'password'];

    protected static $rules = [
        'first_name' => 'required',
        'last_name' => 'required',
        'username' => 'required|unique:users',
        'email_address' => 'required|email|unique:users',
        'avatar' => 'required|unique:users',
        'password' => 'required|confirmed',
        'role_id' => 'required',
        'status_id' => 'required'
    ];
}

<?php

class BaseModel extends Eloquent {

    protected $errors;

    public static function boot()
    {
        parent::boot();

        static::saving(function($model)
        {
            return $model->validate();
        });
    }

    public function validate()
    {
        $validation = Validator::make($this->getAttributes(), static::$rules);

        if ($validation->fails())
        {
            $this->errors = $validation->messages();

            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }

    public function getErrors()
    {
        return $this->errors;
    }
}

How many records are you seeing in your users table? All 20 or so? Seems like maybe the user seeder didn't quite work as expected... especially if this gives an empty array:

User::lists('id');

It's only doing one row with empty strings as the values.

This is using the constructs though. So I'm getting somewhere.

There's no point to having those if you don't need them... Does it function the same without the constructors? Or does it seed the users table with all the records as expected?

If you insist on using a constructor (which is likely not doing much for you...) make sure that they match eloquent's constructor parameters, and that they call parent::__construct()

Am I not doing it right in my code above?

<?php

class BaseModel extends Eloquent {

    protected $errors;

    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    public static function boot()
    {
        parent::boot();

        static::saving(function($model)
        {
            return $model->validate();
        });
    }

    public function validate()
    {
        $validation = Validator::make($this->getAttributes(), static::$rules);

        if ($validation->fails())
        {
            $this->errors = $validation->messages();

            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }

    public function getErrors()
    {
        return $this->errors;
    }
}

<?php

use Illuminate\Auth\UserTrait;
use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableTrait;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableInterface;

class User extends BaseModel implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {

    use UserTrait, RemindableTrait, SoftDeletingTrait;

    protected $fillable = ['first_name', 'last_name', 'username', 'avatar', 'role_id', 'status_id', 'email_address', 'password'];

    protected static $rules = [
        'first_name' => 'required',
        'last_name' => 'required',
        'username' => 'required|unique:users',
        'email_address' => 'required|email|unique:users',
        'avatar' => 'required|unique:users',
        'password' => 'required|confirmed',
        'role_id' => 'required',
        'status_id' => 'required'
    ];

    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    /**
     * The database table used by the model.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $table = 'users';

    /**
     * The attributes excluded from the model's JSON form.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $hidden = array('password', 'remember_token');

    /**
     * Get the user's full name by concatenating the first and last names
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getFullName()
    {
        return $this->first_name . ' ' . $this->last_name;
    }

    public function role()
    {
        return $this->hasOne('UserRole', 'id', 'role_id');
    }

    public function profile()
    {
        return $this->hasOne('UserProfile');
    }

    public function status()
    {
        return $this->hasOne('UserStatus', 'id', 'status_id');
    }

}

constuctors extending eloquent need to have the same method signature, so in your case

public function __construct($attributes = array())

The point I'm trying to get across to you is that even if you do have those, since you're not doing anything else inside the constructor(s), it's the exact same as not listing them in your two classes there. The problem seems to be your UserTableSeeder isn't inserting the records you're expecting in either case.

Correct. I don't know what is preventing it from working as when I have the User model extend Eloquent then it works but if I extend the BaseModel then it doesn't.

So to be clear, in that case (User extending Eloquent) the users table has the records you'd expect from the seeder?

Put the constructor on just the User model, does that fix the issue?

class User extends BaseModel {

    public function __construct($attributes = [])
    {
        parent::__construct($attributes);
    }

}

Unfortunately it still does the same. I'm still getting the following issue. Its still not getting anything in the users table. The below part is coming from the NewsArticlesTableSeeder.

Mine-iMac:manager mine$ php artisan db:seed
Seeded: UserRolesTableSeeder
Seeded: UserStatusesTableSeeder
Seeded: UsersTableSeeder
Seeded: NewsCategoriesTableSeeder



  [Illuminate\Database\QueryException]
  SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1048 Column 'poster_id' cannot be null (SQL: insert into `news_articles` (`poster_id`, `date_posted`, `title`, `content`, `news_category_id`, `visible`, `updated_at`, `created_at`) values (, 2014-11-13 20:37:55, Unde aut qui ab maxime enim asperiores., Et omnis autem
   mollitia debitis quibusdam. Rerum amet ea dolores id. Illum quod sit voluptatem inventore explicabo. Sed delectus commodi ut vitae cumque animi.
  Hic sint et eius quo aut quo omnis. Deleniti quo ea rerum consequatur aut et qui dolorem. Expedita quia debitis laboriosam rerum.
  Modi atque eveniet placeat dolorem. Optio ut maxime voluptate. Ut facere ea sit hic.
  At excepturi accusamus omnis dolor neque impedit a. Ut est voluptas quasi laboriosam autem et sint praesentium. Et soluta eligendi pariatur dolor similique sunt molestias.
  Necessitatibus beatae iste eum nihil corporis tenetur. Repellat fuga inventore facilis suscipit consectetur inventore nemo. Eos quia dignissimos quia quod minima voluptatem aut nisi.
  Voluptas dolores vel quae error saepe dolores omnis. Voluptas ducimus sed facere dolor laudantium. Cumque at excepturi doloribus ullam quia aut magni.
  Sapiente ipsam accusantium debitis et officia. Eius perferendis qui amet similique., 7, yes, 2014-11-13 01:12:40, 2014-11-13 01:12:40))






  [PDOException]
  SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1048 Column 'poster_id' cannot be null



db:seed [--class[="..."]] [--database[="..."]] [--force]

Seems like at the point this seeder runs there are no records in the users table.

Please, assert that you have user records when this seeder is executing

There is not. Please review the full post to understand what is happening.

All your models should extend Eloquent class but not BaseModel, unless you have some logic in BaseModel needed in the extending classes.

I do. As I'm doing some validation stuff in the base model. I learned how to do it in the following video.

https://laracasts.com/series/digging-in/episodes/8

Maybe the validator that you build up into the base model is not letting the seeder to create any record in the users table, maybe some data generated by the seeder doesn't meet with the validation rules.

Try not extending the User model from BaseModel, extend it from Eloquent an run the seeders, maybe this can help you to guess if the validation is the problem. :)

Well when I do that then it does run the seeder successfully. What can I do to find out what is happening to prevent passes validation.

Make sure the faker is generating data according to your validation rules.

I really don't think it has anything to do with faker because as I've said numerous times now it works when I extend the User model from Eloquent but if I turn it into extending BaseModel the. It doesn't.

Yeah, it works because there is no built in validation in your models.

I'm not gonna say if that method is a good or bad approach to validate data entering your models, but if you are going to use it at least must understand how it works and why using it can cause you this kind of issues.

So from your comment you don't have any more ideas?