getting data from a HABTM model - php

Question

I just cant get data from 2 tables in a HABTM relationship and I cant get the answer for these cakephp docs (again). Sorry for asking the question on something that should be explained in the docs.
This should be a simple but I keep getting undefined index and the relationship I set up seems in accordance with the docs. I have another post on a more complicated matter but this issue needs to be isolated .
I dont know how to get related data from the lessons table and the students table via this lessons-students HABTM table.
I want all the lessons a student does. I want the name of the student from the student table and lesson details from the lesson table which has lesson_id as the common link in this lessons-students table. Sounds simple but I cant do it.
public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Student' => array(
'className' => 'Student',
'joinTable' => 'lessons_students',
'foreignKey' => 'lesson_id',
'associationForeignKey' => 'student_id',
'unique' => 'keepExisting',
)
);
class LessonsController extends AppController {
....
$this->Lesson->recursive = -1;
$options['joins'] = array(
array('table' => 'lessons_students',
'alias' => 'LessonsStudent',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'conditions' => array(
'Lesson.id = LessonsStudent.lesson_id',
)
),
array('table' => 'students',
'alias' => 'Student',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'conditions' => array(
'LessonsStudent.student_id=Student.id',
)
),
);
$options['conditions'] = array('Student.id' => 2);
// $Item->find('all', $options);
$student=$this->set( 'student',$this->Lesson->find('all', $options));
In the view I get the error undefined index Student
<?php
// debug($student);
foreach ($student as $item2):
echo '<td>'. $item2['Lesson']['id'].'</td>';
echo '<td>'. $item2['Student']['id'].'</td>';
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17250215/cant-get-all-user-data-from-habtm-in-cakephp
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/associations-linking-models-together.html#hasandbelongstomany-habtm

Answer 1

If you want to use model association you need to remove $this->Lesson->recursive = -1; because it disable any associations defined in model. And than you can remove $options['joins'].
If you have defined many association in your Lesson model and don't want to fetch all of it use unbindModel() or use Containable behavior
$this->Lesson->Behaviors->load('Containable');
$this->Lesson->contain('Student');
If you need to do find many times in many actions it's better to enable Containable in model itself
class Lesson extends AppModel {
public $actsAs = array('Containable');
}
so you can avoid $this->Lesson->Behaviors->load('Containable'); line;