Unsure if all content items need a row in the ucm_base table

Question

I'm writing a console plug-in in Joomla 4.2.3 to add tags to content items based on field values that'll run on a cron task.

I've generally got it working ok, my code adds a row to the contentitem_tag_map table to add a tag to a content item.

My issue is that the contentitem_tag_map table has a field called core_content_id which seems to relate to the core_content_id in the ucm_content table and about half of my content items do not have a corresponding row in the s3ib7_ucm_content, in which cases I do not have anything to set that field to.

What should I be doing?

Every time I add a tag to an item, should I be adding a row to ucm_content and ucm_base tables?

Should I be doing this some other way, rather than just trying to add tags via SQL queries?

I have content versioning turned off in com_content and com_tags.

Answer 1

You should insert records in all relevant tables. There is some code which relies on the ucm_base records. Although it's not used by core, it can be used by 3rd party extensions. ucm_content table is used more widely, especially in frontend. It's used by Tags component to show list of tagged items, as well as by tag modules.

Generally it's a bad practice to be inserting database records manually. Best use existing APIs. Tagging is now handled by a plugin in behaviour group which runs on table events. So you could use the content model or the table class to manage this.