Cakephp join query Belongs to - php

Question

hello I have three tables in my database. Country, State,and City. In state table there is a country_id as foreign key and in city table there is state_id as foreign key. The problem is I want to get the country name when I am querying in the city table. I'll share the code so you can fully understand
Country.php
class Country extends AppModel{
public $useTable = 'countries';
}
State.php
class City extends AppModel{
public $useTable = 'cities';
public $belongsTo = array(
'State' => array(
'className' => 'State',
'foreignKey' => 'state_id',
'fields' => array('state.id','state.name')
)
);
}
City
class State extends AppModel{
public $useTable = 'states';
public $belongsTo = array(
'Country' => array(
'className' => 'Country',
'foreignKey' => 'country_id',
'fields' => array('Country.id','Country.name','Country.short_name')
)
);
okay here is the code. If I use this query
$this->State->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'state.country_id' => $country_id
),
I can get the country name from country table. same is the case If I do this in city table like this
$this->City->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'city.state_id' => $state_id
),
I can get all the state names city names here. So Now in this same table in one query how I can get the country name as well ?

Answer 1

Try using the recursive property.
Setting $this->City->recursive = 2 gets associated data for the table and associated data on the associated tables.
$this->City->recursive = 2;
$this->City->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'city.state_id' => $state_id
),
//other stuff you use in this find
));
You can also using the "joins" flag.
$this->City->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'City.state_id' => $state_id
),
'joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'states',
'alias' => 'State',
'type' => 'left',
'conditions' => 'State.id = City.state_id'
),
array(
'table' => 'countries',
'alias' => 'Country',
'type' => 'left',
'conditions' => 'Country.id = State.country_id'
)
),
'fields' => array('City.id', 'State.name', 'Country.name',
//include all the fields you need
)
));
See: http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/model-attributes.html#recursive

Answer 2

In addition to the first answer, make sure to contain the foreign key for the Country.
class City extends AppModel{
public $belongsTo = array(
'State' => array(
'className' => 'State',
'foreignKey' => 'state_id',
'fields' => array('State.id','State.name', 'State.country_id'), // Make sure to contain the foreign key for the `Country`.
)
);
}
For your information, you can also use ContainableBehavior instead of recursive.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/behaviors/containable.html