Associating a simple product with a configurable product

[MidnightDesign]

What is the correct way to associate an existing simple product with an existing configurable product?

I've been struggling with this for a couple of weeks now. I somehow got it to work im 2.0 using the API classes in Magento\ConfigurableProduct\Api, but that's broken in 2.1. The added products don't show up in the configurable's admin page.

I found some blog posts and Stack Overflow questions related to this, but they either don't work or they don't use the API interfaces.

[antboiko]

Hi @MidnightDesign , please provide detailed steps to reproduce the issue.

Thanks,
Anton.

[MidnightDesign]

I guess this is more of a documentation issue/question. How is this supposed to work? The code that worked for me in 2.0 is very convoluted and so it's not easy to break it down to a simple reproducable thing here.

Basically, I'm using a combination of Magento\ConfigurableProduct\Api\OptionRepositoryInterface and Magento\ConfigurableProduct\Api\LinkManagementInterface#addChild(). Is this even the right direction? Or are those interfaces meant for something different?

[piatrouski]

@antboiko @MidnightDesign #5243

[MidnightDesign]

@piatrouski Yes, your issue might be connected to this. But here I'm asking in general how configurable products are supposed to work.

[develpr]

@MidnightDesign in 1.x you could create a product, then associated simple products to the configurable product by using the standard filter grid to filter / find simple products to associated. With M2 you need to first use the "generation" tool to create the simple products to associate, then you need to replace the auto-generated versions with the simple products you actually want. As I see it there is a completely unneeded first step of creating the autogenerated products.

I would say that you should be able to select simple products to relate to the configurable product without having to first generate the simple products.

[MidnightDesign]

@develpr This can't be the only way right now, can it? If it is, then that's a massive oversight.

Magento, what's the plan here? Is this even planned? @benmarks maybe?

[antboiko]

Hi @MidnightDesign , we have internal ticket MAGETWO-50639 in our backlog to revise the flow for the configurable product.

As for now, the flow described by @develpr is correct. "Add products manually" isn't available until user defines attributes within "Create/Edit Configurations" wizard.

https://github.com/magento/magento2/issues/2564

Best,
Anton.

[MidnightDesign]

@antboiko Thanks for the clarification, but just to be sure: you know I'm talking about doing this in code, not in the admin backend, right? I can't imagine there's no way to do this programmatically. (I've done it in 2.0 - the 2.1 update just broke my hacky code.)

[develpr]

Sorry @MidnightDesign I may have led the discussion on a wild goose chase / off course! I was referring to the admin interface, not code / API.

[antboiko]

Hi @MidnightDesign , please check this https://github.com/magento/magento2/blob/develop/dev/tests/integration/testsuite/Magento/ConfigurableProduct/_files/product_configurable.php and let me know if it helps.

Thanks,
Anton.

[andimov]

@MidnightDesign
Did you check the solution from the previous comment?