loopback save related hasmany models in single request

Question

I have two models that are related through a hasMany relationship.

Customer hasMany CustomerPhones

When creating a new Customer, I would like to pass the related CustomerPhones as part a single request. This seems like a common need, if the approach I am looking to implement in wrong, what is the preferred way of doing this?

This is the url for creating a customer: POST /api/Customers

The request for above url would be req.body

{
  "name": "Foo",
  "customerPhones": [
    { "phoneNumber": "8085551234" },
    { "phoneNumber": "8085554567" }
  ]
}

Loopback models configurations:

Customer.json

{
  "name": "Customer",
  "base": "User",
  "properties": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    }
  },
  "relations": {
    "customerPhones": {
      "type": "hasMany",
      "model": "CustomerPhone",
      "foreignKey": ""
    }
  }
}

CustomerPhone.json

{
  "name": "CustomerPhone",
  "base": "PersistedModel",
  "properties": {
    "phoneNumber": {
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    },
    "customerId": {
      "type": "number",
      "required": true
    }
  },
  "relations": {
    "customer": {
      "type": "belongsTo",
      "model": "Customer",
      "foreignKey": "customerId"
    }
  }
}

Answer 1

I am not sure if this is the best solution, but here it what I ended up doing. I created a new RemoteMethod named createNew on Customer. Within this new remote method I use the methods added through the model relationships.

Customer.createNew = function (data) {
  var newCustomerId;
  var customerPhones = null;

  if (data.customerPhones && data.customerPhones.length) {
    customerPhones = data.customerPhones;
  }

  return Customer
    .create(data)
    .then(function createCustomerPhones (customer) {
      newCustomerId = customer.id;
      if (customerPhones) {
        customer.customerPhones.create(customerPhones);
      }
    })
    .then(function fetchNewCustomerIncludeRelated () {
      return Customer
        .findById(newCustomerId, {
          include: [ 'customerPhones' ]
        });
    })
    .catch(function (err) {
      return err;
    });
};

To make this a bit safer I will need to wrap it in a transaction. I was hoping to use the base CRUD methods, but this solution if fairly clean.