How do you set a node reference field's default value when creating a node programatically?

Question

I use this:

$values = array(
  'type' => 'competition',
  'title‎' => 'my title goes here',
);
$node = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
  ->getStorage('node')
  ->create($values);

This works perfectly. But the problem is, I also have a node reference field called "field_competition_node_reference‎". But this doesnt work:

$values = array(
  'type' => 'competition',
  'title‎' => 'my title goes here',
  'field_competition_node_reference‎' => 1,
);

How would one go about doing this? The value on the object is "target_id". Maybe that's why "create()" doesnt work?

Answer 1

This should work :

$values = [
  'type' => 'competition',
  'title‎' => 'my title goes here',
  'field_competition_node_reference‎' => [['target_id' => 1]],
];
Node::create($values);

Answer 2

  $node = Node::create([
      'type' => 'competition',
      'title' => 'my title goes here',
       'field_competition_node_reference‎' => [
         'target_id' => 1,
       ],
    ]);
    $node->save();

Another way to create node with reference field is:

$node = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()->getStorage('node')->create(array(
  'type'        => 'competition',
  'title'       => 'my title goes here',
  'field_competition_node_reference‎' => [
    'target_id' => 1
  ],
));
$node->save();

Don't forget Add namespace.

  use \Drupal\node\Entity\Node;