Merge pull request #1179 from bolt/creating-content

Creating content in PHP

docs/extensions/creating_content.md

@@ -1,5 +1,172 @@
 Creating (and updating) Content
 ===============================
 
-This page describes how to create new Content and how to update existing Content.
-[todo]
+Sometimes you will need to create content programatically. For example,
+there may be an API of events that need to be managed in Bolt.
+
+## Creating content in PHP
+
+The recommended way for creating Content programatically in Bolt
+is using the provided ContentFactory methods.
+
+### Creating content using `ContentFactorry::create`
+
+```php
+<?php
+
+namespace App;
+
+use Bolt\Factory\ContentFactory;
+
+class ExampleContentCreator
+{
+    /** @var ContentFactory */
+    private $factory;
+
+    public function __construct(ContentFactory $factory)
+    {
+        $this->factory = $factory;
+    }
+
+    public function run(): void
+    {
+        // Let's mock some data.
+        $data = [
+            [
+                'title' => 'My first entry',
+                'teaser' => 'Read more about programatically making content',
+                'body' => 'Bla bla bla bla bla...'
+            ],
+            [
+                'title' => 'My second entry',
+                'teaser' => 'more more more more'
+            ],
+            [
+                'title' => 'Last entry',
+                'body' => "There's the last entry",
+            ]
+        ];
+
+        // Now, let's create some content
+
+        foreach($data as $fieldData) {
+            // "entries" is the Content Type
+            $content = $this->factory->create('entries');
+
+            // Now add some content to it
+            foreach($fieldData as $name => $value) {
+                $content->setFieldValue($name, $value);
+            }
+
+            // Shorthand method for persisting and saving content
+            $this->factory->save($content);
+        }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Soon you'll notice that, as many times as the `run` method runs, 
+as many entry records will be created. In some cases, however, you'll
+need to either update a record and only create it if no such record exists.
+
+### Upserting content with `ContentFactory::upsert`
+
+Upsert means To insert rows into a database table if they do not already exist, 
+or update them if they do. In that case, we use the factory's `upsert` method.
+
+It is useful when you want to _update_ existing records and automatically create
+those records that are new.
+
+To use `upsert`, we need to tell Bolt how to identify whether or not
+a record already exists by passing criteria. For example, do we define a record as a duplicate by
+its title, or a combination of fields, or something else.
+
+The criteria is a PHP array that works much like the `setcontent` directives, e.g.
+```php
+    $criteria = [
+        'title' => 'My first entry'
+    ];
+```
+
+```php
+    $criteria = [
+        'title' => '%entry%',
+        'status' => 'published',
+        'id' => '>50'    
+    ];
+```
+
+And now, to the full example script for upserting:
+
+```php
+<?php
+
+namespace App;
+
+use Bolt\Factory\ContentFactory;
+
+class ExampleContentCreator
+{
+    /** @var ContentFactory */
+    private $factory;
+
+    public function __construct(ContentFactory $factory)
+    {
+        $this->factory = $factory;
+    }
+
+    public function run(): void
+    {
+        // Let's mock some data.
+        $data = [
+            [
+                'title' => 'My first entry',
+                'teaser' => 'Read more about programatically making content',
+                'body' => 'Bla bla bla bla bla...'
+            ],
+            [
+                'title' => 'My second entry',
+                'teaser' => 'more more more more'
+            ],
+            [
+                'title' => 'Last entry',
+                'body' => "There's the last entry",
+            ]
+        ];
+
+        // Now, let's upsert some content
+        foreach($data as $fieldData) {
+
+            // Look for records that have the title of the current record
+            $criteria = [
+                'title' => $fieldData['title']
+            ];
+
+            // This will fetch an existing record, or create a new one if none exists.
+            $content = $this->factory->upsert('entries', $criteria);
+
+            // Now add some content to it
+            foreach($fieldData as $name => $value) {
+                $content->setFieldValue($name, $value);
+            }
+
+            $this->factory->save($content);
+        }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+### Create content using `ContentFactory::createStatic`
+
+If you are not able to use Symfony's autowiring (recommended!),
+you can also use a static method.
+
+<p class="Note">As the <code>createStatic</code> method does NOT use Symfony
+autoloading and autowiring, it is limited in the checks and initialisations
+that it can do. Only use it if you cannot autoload and autowire the 
+<code>ContentFactroy</code>.</p>
+
+## Creating content in the API
+
+For documentation on how to create content in the API,
+check the in-CMS documentation at `/bolt/api`.