$this->find('all', array(...)) - php

Question

I know how find-all works and I wrote a search query which will search an expression in different columns of a datatable. all works well.
But now, I want to search for the expression not only in a flat data-array, I want to search in a child-array. I have the following structure:
[Company] => Array
(
[id] => 1
[user_id] => 3
[name] => TEAM-Security
[address1] => Dorfstrasse 9
)
[Service] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[id] => 2
[cat] => Reinigung
[name] => Baureinigung
[created] => 2014-07-13 00:00:00
[modified] => 2014-07-13 00:00:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[id] => 3
[cat] => Reinigung
[name] => Wohnungsreinigung
[created] => 2014-07-13 00:00:00
[modified] => 2014-07-13 00:00:00
)
)
Now, I am able to search in the different "Company-columns". Now, I want to search also in the columns of the Service-childs. I read a lot of blogs, webpages etc., but I couldn't find any hints how to work that out.
My simple solution so far:
$searchterm = 'TEAM';
$pending = $this->Company->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array('Company.name like' => '%$searchterm%')
));
The troubles I have, I want to search now in a child with subarrays. I want to search for "Baureinigung" etc. Do I have to do a 'foreach' or something manually? Or is there a cake-way which I don't know so far?

Answer 1

This is one of the biggest pains for me in working with Cake - trying to search on deeper columns and use anything other than LEFT joins. Here is what's worked for me. I'm assuming that you are working in the Company Model - if not, you should be. This can be slightly modified to work in the Controller, but it belongs in the Model. I'm also assuming that your HABTM is using a join table called companies_services
First unbind the current associations to the table you want to inner join for the query:
$this->unbindModel(array('hasAndBelongsToMany' => array('Service')));
Then you need to explicitly join up your tables using INNER joins. To do this in CakePHP 2.x, you use the join key in the options argument of the find method:
$this->find('all', array(
'joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'companies_services',
'alias' => 'CompanyServices',
'type' => 'INNER',
'conditions' => array(
'CompanyServices.company_id = Company.id'
)
),
array(
'table' => 'services',
'alias' => 'Service',
'type' => 'INNER',
'conditions' => array(
'Service.id = CompanyServices.id',
'Service.name LIKE ' => '%' . $service_search_term . '%'
)
),
),
'conditions' => array('Company.name LIKE ' => '%'. $company_search_term . '%',
'recursive' => -1
));
One other thing I'll note is that I have run into situations where I had to explicitly declare the fields that I wanted returned after doing this. To do so you would add a 'fields' key to the options array above, so for instance (following on from the 'recursive' line above):
...
'recursive' => -1,
'fields' => array(
'Company.id',
'Company.name',
'CompanyServices.company_id',
'CompanyServices.service_id',
'Service.id',
'Service.name'
)
....

Answer 2

You can use the containable behavior to do some searches on associated data. Example:
$this->find(
'all',
array(
'conditions' => array('Company.name like' => '%$searchterm%'),
'contain' => array(
'Service' => array(
'conditions' => array(
'Service.name like' => '%$searchterm%'
)
)
)
)
);
Be aware though that you have to pay particular attention to join types when doing searches on multiple tables at the same time like this. By default, model associations behave as a left join.

Answer 3

In your Company Model you have define direct association like
class Company extends AppModel
{
var $name = 'Company';
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array('Service' =>
array(
'fields' => array('name')
)
);
}
After that you can try following
$pending = $this->Company->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array("OR" => array(
'Company.name like' => '%$searchterm%',
'Service.name like' => '%$searchterm%'
)))
);

Answer 4

This solution is a bit complex and probably not optimized but will work:
$data = $this->Company->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
"OR" => array(
'Company.name like' => '%$searchterm%',
'Service.name like' => '%$searchterm%'
)
),
'contain' => array(
'Service' => array(
'conditions' => array(
'Service.name like' => '%$searchterm%'
)
)
),
'joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'companies_services',
'alias' => 'CompanyServices',
'type' => 'INNER',
'conditions' => array(
'CompanyServices.company_id = Company.id'
)
),
array(
'table' => 'services',
'alias' => 'Service',
'type' => 'INNER',
'conditions' => array(
'Service.id = CompanyServices.id'
)
)
)
)
);