drupal_write_record() cannot save an empty (full default) row (was: saving an empty entity doesn't work)

What is the hook_entity_info() implementation for your party entity? Do you implement a controller class that takes care of the saving?

I guess the problem is an exception, you are not seeing due to a bug. See #973116: drupal_write_record() fails when saving new entity. If not, please re-open.

great :)

!? Sry, I don't get what's the issue here? You want to be able to build entity types without properties?

Why? You want to have entities that do not contain any data? Hm, then the only reasonable information that you store is the amount of entities. You can implement a counter more easily, or do I miss something?

Then it should be sufficient to just create an empty party entity and pass it to the edit form where the actual input/selection of profiles happens. No need to save() beforehand.

For the edit page: you will have to implement something like (assuming 'party' is the machine name of your entity type)

function party_form($form, &$form_state, $party, $op = 'edit') { }

for an example see wsclient_ui.inc

>Also, even once those profile entities are created, there's still no properties to save in the party!
I guess you'll need to store references on profiles, thus profile ids? Or are you using a field for that?

Still you'll need at least an entity identifier - have you defined that in your hook_schema()? If so, are you getting an error message when saving?

Can I find the code somewhere, so I'd have a look.

This is a core bug. drupal_write_records() cowardly refuses to save an empty (ie. only defaults) row.

There is no function called drupal_write_records().

We probably need a ->useDefaults() here.

I'm on it!

#24: write_empty_row.patch queued for re-testing.

#24: write_empty_row.patch queued for re-testing.

#24: write_empty_row.patch queued for re-testing.

useDefaults() docs are readily available on api.drupal.org ;-)
http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core--includes--database--query.inc/fun...

Looks good to me and nice test addition. Committed/pushed to 8.x, moving back to 7.x. Please re-upload the 7.x patch so the test bot can run it.

Try again...

Fixing tag.

Wow - that's an oldie!

Hm, this makes sense but I'm not sure about it for Drupal 7. Trying this:

$empty = array();
drupal_write_record('users', $empty);

Before the patch it's a no-op. After the patch it's a PDO exception. Granted that's a mistake in your code, but maybe we want to find a kinder way to indicate it in Drupal 7?

The patch also changes the NULL return value in case of a no-op, although I guess that was never documented.

-  if (empty($fields)) {
-    return;
-  }
......
   else {
+    // Create an UPDATE query.
     $query = db_update($table)->fields($fields);

Won't this also fail with an error if $fields is empty? (I noticed the patch has no test coverage for the update case, only the insert case.)

This part might affect Drupal 8 too.

Looking for D8 feedback on "Won't this also fail with an error if $fields is empty?" from @David_Rothstein in #42.

We should be sure this is fixed in D8 before back-porting it to D7.

@David_Rothstein - I also don't know what "kinder way to indicate" this we are available. I think it would be better than what we have now.

If this is still an issue in 8, the patch from 3 years ago definitely needs reroll.

"drupal_write_record() and drupal_schema_fields_sql() removed in favor of merge queries and entity API"
https://www.drupal.org/node/2340291

Aye but Insert::preExecute will silently quit (in D8 too) if you make a query that uses only defaults, check the last return statement, it's missing a defaultFields check.

Edit: amateescu found this.