(Quick Reference)

addTo*

Purpose

Adds a domain class relationship for one-to-many or many-to-many relationship, where the relationship is indicated by the property used as the suffix to the method.

Examples

def fictBook = new Book(title: "IT")
def nonFictBook = new Book(title: "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft")
def a = new Author(name: "Stephen King")
             .addToFiction(fictBook)
             .addToNonFiction(nonFictBook)
             .save()

Description

The addTo* method is a dynamic method that uses an association to automatically add instances to the association. It also automatically configures the bi-directional relationship so that both sides are set.

Consider these domain classes which are used in the example above:

class Author {

String name

static hasMany = [fiction: Book, nonFiction: Book] }

class Book {

String title

static belongsTo = [author: Author] }

The example creates a new fiction book and a new non-fiction book, and an author. addToFiction is a dynamic method that works because the Fiction part corresponds to the fiction collection that results from the hasMany declaration, and likewise for NonFiction and nonFiction. After calling save() on the Author, the associated Book instances are transitively saved too, even though we didn't call save() on either of them.

In addition, calling addTo* initializes the associated collections, and sets the back-reference of the author property in each Book.

There's also a more compact version of the method that accepts a Map instead of a domain class instance:

def a = new Author(name: "Stephen King")
             .addToFiction(title: "IT")
             .addToNonFiction(title: "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft")
             .save()

This works because GORM knows the type that is being added and can use the standard Map constructor to create the instances for you.