Can I POST multiple models using Ember Data?

Question

So let's say you have a User model which is set up to a fairly standard API. On the front end you have an Ember project which also has that User model. The normal creation call would be something like the following:

store.createRecord('user', {email: '[email protected]'}).save();

This would send off a POST request to something like /api/users. However, something fairly extensive API's support is the creation of multiple models at once. So for instance, instead of the POST call just sending a single object under user: {email: '[email protected]'} it would send an array of objects like users: [{email: '[email protected]'}, {email: '[email protected]'}, ...].

How I have seen this handled in ember is to just do multiple creation calls at runtime. However, this is terribly inefficient and I am wondering if Ember supports saving multiple models at the same time? How would you achieve this in Ember?

Answer 1

You cannot save an array of models in a single POST request Ember Data as you describe it, however there is a way.

You can save a parent model which hasMany 'user' with the EmbeddedRecordsMixin, which will include either relationship ids or full records. Your serializer would look like -

import DS from 'ember-data';

export default DS.RESTSerializer.extend(DS.EmbeddedRecordsMixin, {
  attrs: {
    users: { embedded: 'always' },
  }
});

Depending on your use case it may make sense to create a parent model only for this purpose which hasMany 'user'. If you want to use an existing model and don't always want to embed its user records there is an answer here.

If you do decide to save the models individually, you would want to do users.invoke('save'), which will trigger a POST for each model.