Saving Entry with Category field

Question

I am stuck on saving entry with a category field. The error message I get is about not being able to create/update the entry in the relations table.

$accomodationTypecategory = ['title'=>'Hotel']

$entry = new EntryModel();
$entry->sectionId = 3;
$entry->typeId = 3;
$entry->authorId = 1;
$entry->enabled = true;
$entry->setContent(
    $entry->getContent()->setAttributes([
        'title' => 'Test Entry', 
        'body' => "Testing", 
        'address'=>"101 Silver Avenue",
        'phone'=>'0209900292092',
        'websiteAddress'=>'www.example.com',
        'towns'=>'Newy', 
        'accommodationType'=>$accomodationTypecategory
    ]);

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

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

To set a related category (or any other kind of element) you will want to pass an array of categoryIds (elementIds) — even if, as in this case, there is only one category or element. You can either set the ID as a static value if it's predefined or dynamically look it up based on the title, slug or any other unique element attribute.

$criteria = craft()->elements->getCriteria(ElementType::Category);
$criteria->title = 'Hotel';
$accomodationTypeCategory = craft()->elements->findElements($criteria);

$entry = new EntryModel();
$entry->sectionId = 3;
$entry->typeId = 3;
$entry->authorId = 1;
$entry->enabled = true;
$entry->getContent()->setAttributes(array(
    'title'             => 'Test Entry', 
    'body'              => 'Testing', 
    'address'           => '101 Silver Avenue',
    'phone'             => '0209900292092',
    'websiteAddress'    => 'www.example.com',
    'towns'             => 'Newy', 
    'accommodationType' => array(
        $accomodationTypeCategory[0]->id
    )
);
craft()->entries->saveEntry($entry);