How to create an item and connect other documents to relationship field inside

[MinskLeo]

Hi! Imagine I have some kind of entity (post), which have a relation to another entity (tags, hasMany: true by the way). How can I create a new record in db of post entity, while also connecting (better to say modifying) list of already created tags at the same time for that particular item?
Expected example below:

const newPost = await req.payload.create({
   collection: 'posts',
   data: {
      tags: [{ connect: { id: { equals: 5 } } }],
   }
})

I didn't found even single example about how to use Payload local API with relationship data. Would really appreciate if someone will help there.

[akhrarovsaid]

Hey @MinskLeo

Right, this is definitely a common use case but the answer is much simpler than that. If you have the id's of the tag documents you want to create a relationship to, then it would be:

const newPost = await req.payload.create({
   collection: 'posts',
   data: {
      //... other fields
      tags: [tagOne.id, tagTwo.id, tagThree.id],
   }
})

You simply pass the ID's of the tags.

[MinskLeo]

Hi! Such a quick answer! Hah, thats right, sounds logical, ok :) Anyway, would be really good if this can be covered in docs... And If I got it correctly, in case of update operation, such array of id's will replace (overwrite) all possibly existing ones?

In example below tagOne, tagTwo, tagThree will remove all other possible relations with other tags, right?

    await req.payload.update({
      collection: 'posts',
      where: {
         id: { equals: 1 }
      },
      data: {
         tags: [tagOne.id, tagTwo.id, tagThree.id],
      },
    })

[akhrarovsaid]

Hey @MinskLeo

The update operation accepts partial data, but yes if in that data tags exist, then it will overwrite. You should always pass the data you want it to look like, so if adding a tag, then you should first get all existing tags on the doc and then append the tag id that you want to add!