The storeAssociated Utility ​

Learn how to store associated data in its proper stores.

Every Feathers-Pinia Client includes a storeAssociated method, which receives a data object and a config object which tells the utility the service in which to store the associated data.

storeAssociated ​

storeAssociated(data, config)

• data {Object} any record
• config {Object} an object with keys that represent a key from data and where the values are service paths.

Note that storeAssociated should generally be used first in setupInstance.

Example ​

See storeAssociated as configured in the posts service of this example:

export const api = createPiniaClient(feathersClient, {
  pinia,
  idField: 'id',
  services: {
    authors: {
      setupInstance(author, { app }) {
        const withDefaults = useInstanceDefaults({ setInstanceRan: false }, author)
        return withDefaults
      },
    },
    posts: {
      idField: 'id',
      setupInstance(post, { app }) {
        app.storeAssociated(post, {
          author: 'authors',
          comments: 'comments',
        })
        const withDefaults = useInstanceDefaults({ authorIds: [] }, post)

        return withDefaults
      },
    },
    comments: {
      idField: 'id',
      setupInstance(comment, { app }) {
        const withDefaults = useInstanceDefaults({ description: '', isComplete: false }, comment)
        return withDefaults
      },
    },
  },
})

Now when you create an instance with data matching those keys, the related data will move to the associated stores.

const post = api.service('posts').new({
  title: 'foo',
  author: { id: 2, name: 'Steve' },
  comments: [
    { id: 1, text: 'comment 1', authorId: 1, postId: 1 },
    { id: 2, text: 'comment 2', authorId: 1, postId: 1 },
  ],
})

post.createInStore()

If you inspect post in the above example, you'll find the following:

• post.author is an author instance, already created in the authors service store.
• post.comments is an array of comment instances, already created in the comments service store.
• The post.author and individual records in post.comments are all reactive. So if they get updated in their stores, the values on post will reflect the change.
• The post.comments list length is not reactive.
• We still have to manually call post.createInStore() afterwards to add it to the posts service store.
• Finally, all of the values have been rewritten as non-enumerable, so if you call post.save(), the related data will not be sent in the request to the API server.