Set Structure Parent when creating Entry in Plugin

Question

I have Structure-type Section for entries and want to pragmatically populate a large list of multi-tiered entries.

I see you can create an entry like:

$entry = new EntryModel();
$entry->getContent()->title = 'New Page';
$entry->getContent()->body = null;

craft()->entries->saveEntry($entry);

What I want to do is add the parent(s) of the entry, something like:

$entry = new EntryModel();
$entry->getContent()->title = 'New Page';
$entry->getContent()->body = null;

// this entry would be a child in order of Sports -> Tennis -> This Entry
$entry->getContent()->parent = sports->tennis;

craft()->entries->saveEntry($entry);

Is there a way to do something like that?

Answer 1

This question is old, but the solution is:

// look up parent with a ElementCriteriaModel

$parentCriteria = craft()->elements->getCriteria(ElementType::Entry);

$parentCriteria->search  = 'slug:'.$parentSlug; // whatever you have

$parent = $parentCriteria->find()[0];

$entry = new EntryModel();
$entry->sectionId = $section;

$entry->parentId = $parent->id; 

...