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Version: 3.x

Id

Version
3.x
Updated
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The primary key. Every model with a table has exactly one.

Storage kind: column · Column: int unsigned, auto_increment

You do not choose this type so much as declare it. The one decision it carries is makeEditLink: whether the id cell in the list links through to the record's edit form.

Settings​

SettingMeaning
makeEditLinkRender the id as a link to the record's edit form. Needs component and controller
defaultConventionally 0, meaning "not saved yet"

It renders itself, in two places​

There is no tmpl/id.php, and its absence is not a bug — this type overrides the rendering methods directly:

  • getBodyAdmin() returns an empty string. The id is not an editable form field; the edit form shows nothing for it. The value round-trips through the form's own hidden id input, not through this property.
  • getCellContentInListingTable() emits the row's cid[] checkbox and then the id itself, wrapped in an edit link when makeEditLink is set. getHeaderCellContentInListingTable() emits the check-all box.

So the checkbox column every admin list has is this property. isInListing() is hard-coded true rather than deriving from positionList the way every other type does — the selection column is not optional. Give it a positionList anyway: that is what orders it, and without one it falls back to 0.

Insert versus update​

isInsert() on the model is empty($data->{$tableKey}), so a 0 or absent id is what makes a store an insert rather than an update. getDataFromRequest() maps a submitted '0' to NULL, which lands in the same place.

Two things follow:

  • A submitted id of 0 creates a record. There is no "update record 0".
  • getDataKeysForBaseTable() returns the id only when the data object actually carries the key. On an insert it is left out entirely, so MySQL's auto_increment assigns it rather than the code writing an explicit 0.

It is read-only to clients: generated schemas and the MCP tool descriptions mark it so. A create call supplies no id; an update identifies the record by it.

@see ordering.md @see ../com_configbox_kenedo_model.md — isInsert() and the store flow

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