Help with ChannelEntry Model Service to get/set data directly in the database

Question

To retrieve data from a specific custom_field in a channel entry I used to do the following:

$data = ee()->db->select('field_id_2')
    ->from('exp_channel_data')
    ->where(array(
        'entry_id' => $entry_id
    ))
    ->get();

$field_value = $data->row('field_id_2');

How would I do that now ? Is there somewhere I can I find examples for getting and setting data in channel entries using the ChannelEntry model ?

(examples in the docs are for members and templates and I don't get how it relates to entries)

Answer 1

The documentation of the EE models is pretty sparse right now - hopefully over time that will improve.

To do what you describe this kind of approach will work - there maybe better ways (hopefully if so someone who knows will post another answer)...

This sets up a variable that links to a single entry in the EE database, from where you can either get or set specific fields etc. You can use any field in the filter - as before the core EE fields are accessed by name (e.g. entry_id, url_title) and custom variables by variable ID (e.g. field_id_65). The first() gets a single value, leave this off and you get an object with all matching entries.

$entry = ee('Model')->get('ChannelEntry')->filter('url_title', $your_url_title)
                    ->first();
$entry_id_of_found = $entry->entry_id; // get a value 
$entry->$field_id_65 = "some text about cats liking chicken"; // set a value
$entry->save(); // write changes back to EE database

HTH