Function

belongsTo (modelName, options) Ember.computed public

Module: @ember-data/model
modelName
String
(optional) type of the relationship
options
Object
(optional) a hash of options
returns
Ember.computed
relationship

belongsTo is used to define One-To-One and One-To-Many relationships on a Model.

belongsTo takes an optional hash as a second parameter, currently supported options are:

  • async: A boolean value used to explicitly declare this to be an async relationship. The default is true.
  • inverse: A string used to identify the inverse property on a related model in a One-To-Many relationship. See Explicit Inverses
  • polymorphic A boolean value to mark the relationship as polymorphic

One-To-One

To declare a one-to-one relationship between two models, use belongsTo:

app/models/user.js
import Model, { belongsTo } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class UserModel extends Model {
  @belongsTo('profile') profile;
}
app/models/profile.js
import Model, { belongsTo } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class ProfileModel extends Model {
  @belongsTo('user') user;
}

One-To-Many

To declare a one-to-many relationship between two models, use belongsTo in combination with hasMany, like this:

app/models/post.js
import Model, { hasMany } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class PostModel extends Model {
  @hasMany('comment') comments;
}
app/models/comment.js
import Model, { belongsTo } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class CommentModel extends Model {
  @belongsTo('post') post;
}

You can avoid passing a string as the first parameter. In that case Ember Data will infer the type from the key name.

app/models/comment.js
import Model, { belongsTo } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class CommentModel extends Model {
  @belongsTo post;
}

will lookup for a Post type.

Sync relationships

Ember Data resolves sync relationships with the related resources available in its local store, hence it is expected these resources to be loaded before or along-side the primary resource.

app/models/comment.js
import Model, { belongsTo } from '@ember-data/model';

export default class CommentModel extends Model {
  @belongsTo('post', {
    async: false
  })
  post;
}

In contrast to async relationship, accessing a sync relationship will always return the record (Model instance) for the existing local resource, or null. But it will error on access when a related resource is known to exist and it has not been loaded.

let post = comment.get('post');

© 2020 Yehuda Katz, Tom Dale and Ember.js contributors
Licensed under the MIT License.
https://api.emberjs.com/ember-data/3.25/functions/@ember-data%2Fmodel/belongsTo