I have a very deep association in Cake:
User
---- Garage
---- ---- Vehicle
---- ---- ---- VehicleAlbum
What is the best way to check if a VehicleAlbum belongs to a user?
Because doing a recursive 3 is very expensive. I have looked into contain, is this the best solution?
Thanks, Josh.
There is no such thing as recursive 3 (see book).
Nor can you use Containable to limit your find results based on a child condition (see reasoning).
I assume you'll want to do something like this (starting with Garage to reduce one query needed, since it has the user id as a field):
$this->Garage->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'Garage.user_id' => $userId
),
'joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'vehicles',
'alias' => 'Vehicle',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions' => array(
'Vehicle.garage_id = Garage.id'
)
),
array(
'table' => 'vehicle_albums',
'alias' => 'VehicleAlbum',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions' => array(
'VehicleAlbum.vehicle_id = Vehicle.id',
'VehicleAlbum.id' => $vehicleAlbumId
)
)
)
));
Should return result(s) if it is the owner or empty if not.
No it will not be expensive until unless you are making a wrong query. Well write a query and join all the four tables and run explain...then check whether it is expensive or cheap. One more thing in your case if these tables are connected as shown above then you have to pay for the join query there is no other way out except changing your relations between the tables.
Related
can anyone tell me, how to retrieve joined result from multiple tables in cakePHP ( using cakePHP mvc architecture). For example, I have three tables to join (tbl_topics, tbl_items, tbl_votes. Their relationship is defined as following: a topic can have many items and an item can have many votes. Now I want to retrieve a list of topics with the count of all votes on all items for each topic. The SQL query for this is written below:
SELECT Topic.*, count(Vote.id) voteCount
FROM
tbl_topics AS Topic
LEFT OUTER JOIN tbl_items AS Item
ON (Topic.id = Item.topic_id)
LEFT OUTER JOIN tbl_votes AS Vote
ON (Item.id = Vote.item_id);
My problem is I can do it easily using $this-><Model Name>->query function, but this requires sql code to be written in the controller which I don't want. I'm trying to find out any other way to do this (like find()).
$markers = $this->Marker->find('all', array('joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'markers_tags',
'alias' => 'MarkersTag',
'type' => 'inner',
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions'=> array('MarkersTag.marker_id = Marker.id')
),
array(
'table' => 'tags',
'alias' => 'Tag',
'type' => 'inner',
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions'=> array(
'Tag.id = MarkersTag.tag_id',
'Tag.tag' => explode(' ', $this->params['url']['q'])
)
)
)));
as referred to in nate abele's article: link text
I'll be honest here and say that you'll probably be a lot happier if you just create a function in your model, something like getTopicVotes() and calling query() there. Every other solution I can think of will only make it more complicated and therefore uglier.
Edit:
Depending on the size of your data, and assuming you've set up your model relations properly (Topic hasMany Items hasMany Votes), you could do a simple find('all') containing all the items and votes, and then do something like this:
foreach ($this->data as &$topic)
{
$votes = Set::extract('/Topic/Item/Vote', $topic);
$topic['Topic']['vote_count'] = count($votes);
}
Two things are important here:
If you have a lot of data, you should probably forget about this approach, it will be slow as hell.
I've written this from my memory and it might not look like this in real life and/or it may not work at all :-)
You can easily set the "recursive" property on a find() query.
$result = $this->Topic->find('all', array('recursive' => 2));
Alternatively, you can use the Containable behavior in your model. Then you can use:
$this->Topic->contain(array(
'Item',
'Item.Vote',
));
$result = $this->Topic->find('all');
or
$result = $this->Topic->find('all', array(
'contain' => array(
'Item',
'Item.Vote',
),
));
What you need is recursive associations support, which is not possible with stock CakePHP currently.
Although it could be achieved using some bindModel trickery
or an experimental RecursiveAssociationBehavior.
Both of these solutions will either require you to use extra code or rely on a behaviour in your application but if you resist the temptation to write pure SQL code, you'll be rewarded with being able to use Cake`s pagination, auto conditions, model magic etc..
I think this answer is already submitted, but I am posting here for someone who seeks still for this.
The joins can be done with find() method can be like below
$result = $this->ModelName1->find("all",array(
'fields' => array('ModelName1.field_name','Table2.field_names'), // retrieving fileds
'joins' => array( // join array
array(
'table' => 'table_name',
'alias' => 'Table2',
'type' => 'inner',
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions'=> array('ModelName1.id = Table2.id') // joins conditions array
),
array(
'table' => 'table_name3',
'alias' => 'Table3',
'type' => 'inner',
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions'=> array('Table3.id = Table2.id')
)
)));
You should study HaBTM (Has and Belongs to Many)
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/associations-linking-models-together.html
I`m having a problem with the Containable behaviour.
I would like to know if there is any way to access the contained model attributes for operations like ordering.
For example, I have a model B which belongs to a Model A. I need to order objects of B using an attribute (integer) of A. It would be something like:
'contain' => array(
'A' => array(
'B' => array(
'order' => 'A.integer_attribute'
)
)
)
I know that there are easier ways to do this without Containable, but for reasons which are not worth being detailed here, I need to use it. This is an abstract example, in truth model A belongs to other models and this is just a small part of a deep containable tree.
I'd be very glad with any help!
EDIT
OK, I'll try my best to describe the situation without being unclear:
I have 4 models: User, Category, Field and UserField, and their relationships are as follows:
Category hasMany User
Category hasMany Field
User hasMany UserField
Field hasMany UserField
The opposite of these relations are all belongsTo. The purpose here is that the user belongs to a category, which has many fields that he needs to fill with his information (city, state etc). The information he fills is stored in the UserField table, as each information needs to have its field and the user who provided it.
That said, I need to build a screen which displays, for each category, a list of users and their information. So, I retrieve all the categories and its fields, so I can build a table for each category. Each field has an attribute "no_order", which is the number that indicates the order in which the field appears.
At the same time, I need all of each category's users to display them correctly in the tables. Finally, and there's the problem, I need to have UserField objects ordered by the "no_order" of their respective fields, for each user. So I ended up with something like:
$categories = $this->Category->find('all', array(
'order' => 'Category.name',
'contain' => array(
'Field',
'User' => array(
'UserField' => array(
'order' => 'Field.no_order'
)
)
)
));
But this doesn't work, since UserField cannot reach its respective Field's no_order from there.
I apologize if this wasn't clear enough, but for anyone who would spend a little while reading this, I would be VERY grateful for your help!
I am not shure for what do you want so, but I thing that should use joins of cakephp
$A = $this->A->find('all', array(
'joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'B',
'alias' => 'B',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'conditions' => array(
'B.field_id = A.id'
)
)
),
'conditions' => array(
'B.field' => 'if_you_want_more_conditions'
),
'contain' => array(
'A' => array(
'B' => array(
'order' => 'A.integer_attribute'
)
)
),
'fields' => array('A.field','B.field'),
'recursive' => -1
));
I finally came up with a solution. I don't know how efficient it is, but there it goes:
'contain' => array(
'Field',
'User' => array(
'User.privilege = "Solicitante"'
'UserField' => array(
'order' => '(SELECT f.no_order FROM fields AS f WHERE UserField.field_id = f.id LIMIT 1)'
)
)
)
Having the raw query solved my problem. Hope it helps anybody who comes across a similar problem!
I've been using counter caches for a lot of my models. One question I have that I am not sure how to do.
I have a User model, and an Activity model. Activity has a column called type that can be things like, run, walk, etc.
I know I can easily create a counter cache for activity_count in the users table. But I want to have counter columns like run_count, walk_count that count activities with type ="run", or type = "walk", etc. but with still all the benefits of automatic updates to the counts.
Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks!
You can do this using COunterCache... the only thing is, you should define seperate belongsTo relationships for each activity. First let me say this isn't the best wat to solve this in practice, but just because you asked:
var $belongsTo = array(
'UserWalk' => array(
'counterCache' => true,
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'className' => 'User',
'conditions' => array('Activity.type' => 'walk'),
'counterScope' => array('Activity.type' => 'walk')
),
'UserRun' => array(
'counterCache' => true,
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'className' => 'User',
'conditions' => array('Activity.type' => 'run'),
'counterScope' => array('Activity.type' => 'run')
),
);
After that Cake will look for the Count field for each associated model. The fieldsnaming for the counterChache should now be something like user_run_count or userrun_count (I do not know the convention for this)
nope. You can count type ="run", or type = "walk", or just normal count, but only one of them. On the other hand, the code to update that isn't too bad. You can also add that logic in afterSave.
I am stuck on pagination in CakePHP 1.3. I am trying to paginate feePayment records based on certain criteria.
feePayments belongs to Students which in turn belongs YearGroups.
I want to paginate 'unpaid' feePayments for each year group. The problem I am having is that the SQL query seems to only take into account the conditions I specified for the FeePayment model and ignores the YearGroup criteria so only overdue unpaid records are returned regardless of the year group specified.
Here is my code:
function unpaidClass($id) {
$this->paginate = array(
'FeePayment' => array ('recursive' => 1, 'conditions' => array('FeePayment.status' => 'Unpaid', 'FeePayment.due_date <= ' => date("Y-m-d"))),
'YearGroup' => array ('recursive' => 1, 'conditions' => array('YearGroup.school_year' => $id))
);
$this->set('feePayments', $this->paginate());
}
Hope this makes sense, appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Sid.
You should consider using the Containable behavior. This behavior allows you to group the necessary data you want without relaying on the "recursiveness" of your query. You can place conditions on your contained data similar to the way you would in your queries and is a more permanent way to structure data across your application instead of specifying conditions over and over again in each query.
Paginate should automatically pick up these associations when you Paginate your main model. Here's an example of what I mean here: http://cakephp.1045679.n5.nabble.com/Paginate-with-Containable-td1300971.html#a1300971
These should make your task easier.
After a lot of searching the net and reading CakePHP's documentation, here is the solution I came up with:
function unpaidClass($id) {
$this->FeePayment->unbindModel(array(
'belongsTo' => array('Student')
), $reset = 0);
$this->FeePayment->bindModel(array(
'belongsTo' => array(
'Student' => array(
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions' => array('Student.id = FeePayment.student_id')
),
'YearGroup' => array(
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions' => array('YearGroup.id = Student.year_group_id')
)
)
), $reset = 0);
$this->paginate = array(
'contain' => array('Student','YearGroup'),
'conditions' => array('YearGroup.school_year' => $id,
'FeePayment.status' => 'Unpaid',
'FeePayment.due_date <= ' => date("Y-m-d")));
$this->set('feePayments', $this->paginate());
}
I'm using the Containable behavior to get a list of Comments (belongsTo Post, which belongs to Question; Question hasMany Post, and Post hasMany Comments; all of these belong to Users).
$data = $this->Question->find ( 'first',
array ('contain' =>
array ('User',
'Post' => array ('User', /* 'order' => 'User.created DESC'*/ )
)
)
);
It works, when I comment out the section in comments above. I suppose this is to be expected, but what I want is all of the Posts that are found, should be sorted in order of the 'created' field of the 'User' they belong to. How do I accomplish this deeper level sorting in CakePHP? I always get, "Warning (512): SQL Error: 1054: Unknown column 'User.created' in 'order clause'"
Thanks for your help!
Also, you might be trying to group on a related table from a find call that doesn't use joins.
Set your debug level to something greater than 1 so you can see the query log and make sure that Cake isn't doing two queries to fetch your data. If that is the case then the first query is not actually referencing the second table.
If you want to manually force a join in these situations you can use the Ad-Hoc joins method outlined by Nate at the following link.
http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/quick-tip-doing-ad-hoc-joins-in-model-find
I have found two ways to get around this.
The first is to define the second level associacion directly in the model.
Now you will have access to this data everywhere.
It should look something like this.....
var $belongsTo = array(
'Foo' => array(
'className' => 'Foo', //unique name of 1st level join ( Model Name )
'foreignKey' => 'foo_id', //key to use for join
'conditions' => '',
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
),
'Bar' => array(
'className' => 'Bar', //name of 2nd level join ( Model Name )
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions' => array(
'Bar.id = Foo.bar_id' //id of 2nd lvl table = associated column in 1st level join
),
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
)
);
The problem with this method is that it could make general queries more complex than they need be.
You can thus also add the second level queries directly into te find or paginate statement as follows: (Note: I found that for some reason you can't use the $belongsTo associations in the second level joins and will need to redefine them if they are already defined. eg if 'Foo' is already defined in $belongsTo, you need to create a duplicate 'Foo1' to make the association work, like the example below.)
$options['joins'] = array(
array('table' => 'foos',
'alias' => 'Foo1',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions' => array(
'CurrentModel.foo_id = Foo1.id'
)
),
array('table' => 'bars',
'alias' => 'Bar',
'type' => 'inner',
'foreignKey' => false,
'conditions' => array(
'Bar.id = Foo1.bar_id'
)
)
);
$options['conditions'] = array('Bar.column' => "value");
$this->paginate = $options;
$[modelname] = $this->paginate();
$this->set(compact('[modelname]'));
I hope this is clear enough to understand and that it helps someone.
Check your recursive value. If it's too limiting, it will ignore the containable links, IIRC. I remember bumping into this a few times. I'd try containing multiple models, but my recursive option was set to 0 and nothing would get pulled. For your example, I'd think that a value of 1 (the default) would suffice, but maybe you've explicitly set it to 0 somewhere?
You can add before your call to find() the following:
$this->Question->order = 'Question.created DESC';
Yeah, I couldn't work out how to sort based on the related/associated model, so ended up using the Set::sort() method. Checkout this article for a good explanation.
// This finds all FAQ articles sorted by:
// Category.sortorder, then Category.id, then Faq.displaying_order
$faqs = $this->Faq->find('all', array('order' => 'displaying_order'));
$faqs = Set::sort($faqs, '{n}.Category.id', 'ASC');
$faqs = Set::sort($faqs, '{n}.Category.sortorder', 'ASC');
...And yes, it should probably be a Category->find() but unfortunately the original developer didn't code it that way, and I didn't wanna rework the views.