CakePHP: Is it possible to insert record with pre-defined primary key value?

Question

I have a CakePHP model - User - that has ties to an external corporate system. I store some data on those systems and other data locally. In my User::beforeSave() method, I'm trying to set an ID, send the data (with that custom ID) to my corporate systems and then, if it inserts successfully there, return true so that Cake will insert the new user record with that same ID so that I can link them later.

I can't find a way to make this happen. Is there a way to insert a CakePHP record with a user-specified primary key value? I'm using UUIDs so there's (effectively) no opportunity for overlap.

$this->data['User']['id'] = String::uuid()

try {
   $user_proxy = new CoreServicesUserProxy();

   $corp_user = $user_proxy->CreateUser (

      array (

         'user' => array (

            'UserName'     => 'myusername',

            'EmailAddress' => $this->data['User']['email'],

            'SecurityId'   => $this->data['User']['id']

         )

      )

   );
}
catch ( Exception $e ) {
   // error handling stuff
   return false;
}

Answer 1

I realise you have already been given some hints, but here is some code which might help.

Why not add an external_user_id field to your users table?

<?php
class User extends AppModel {

    function beforeSave() {
        $ds = ConnectionManager::getDataSource('core_services');
        $externalUser = $ds->createUser($this->data);
        if (!$externalUser) {
            return false;
        }
        $this->data['User']['external_id'] = $externalUser['id'];
        return true;
    }

    function afterFind($results, $primary) {
        // handle different types of find here ('all' vs 'first' vs through relation)
        foreach ($results as &$result) {
            $result = $this->_mergeExternalUser($result);
        }
    }

    function _mergeExternalUser($user) {
        $ds = ConnectionManager::getDataSource('core_services');
        $externalUser = $ds->retrieveUser($result['external_id']);
        return am($externalUser, $user);
    }

}
?>