Yii2: ActiveRecord::update() for new model does not work

[PowerGamer1]

Assuming User represents an ActiveRecord model for DB table user with PK id.

$user = new User();
$user->id = 123;
$user->name = 'Test';
$user->update(false, ['name']);

The example above generates the following (wrong) SQL:

UPDATE `user` SET `name`='Test' WHERE `id` IS NULL

Expected SQL:

UPDATE `user` SET `name`='Test' WHERE `id`=123

Doing $user->setOldAttribute('id', 123) instead of $user->id = 123; to make update() generate correct SQL seems to be too cryptic.

[Sammaye]

This would be complete gutting of the active record paradigm, why are you not finding the document first? Or even performing a ::updateAll()?

[PowerGamer1]

@Sammaye

why are you not finding the document first?

Why not? For ex., the ID comes as a number from trusted source, no need to check for existence in DB with find() first. Or maybe I did the find() but used asArray() to lower memory usage/other reasons and now only have ID as a number.

Or even performing a ::updateAll() ?

Now that I didn't think about - its a nice workaround for the problem (of more easily building UPDATE statement without writing raw SQL myself when ID number of record is known).

[Sammaye]

In this case updateAll would be the preferred way and should be faster too

[CedricYii]

The title is not good, you are not trying to update a new model but you are trying to update an existing model without telling yii that it does exist.
How about this:

$user = new User();
$user->id = 123;
$user->isNewRecord = false;
$user->name = 'Test';
$user->update(false, ['name']);

[SilverFire]

It is by design. I don't think that we have to change anything.