CakePHP: adding DISTINCT to find causes an associated to get omitted - php

Question

We build a fairly complex set of $conditions, then we search using Paginator:
$this->Paginator->settings = array( 'conditions'=>$conditions,
'joins'=>$joins,
'limit'=>25,
//'fields' => array('DISTINCT (User.id)')
);
$resume_display_array = $this->Paginator->paginate('User');
You'll see the 'fields' is commented out. When we uncomment that field, it causes associated model Resume to get dropped from the results array (without it, each result returned includes a [Resume] key.
Why is this happening?
Here's the SQL dump WITH the DISTINCT option in use:
SELECT DISTINCT (`User`.`id`), `User`.`id`
FROM `sw`.`users` AS `User`
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`taggings_users` AS `TaggingUser`
ON (`User`.`id`= `TaggingUser`.`user_id`)
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`taggings` AS `Tagging`
ON (`TaggingUser`.`tagging_id`= `Tagging`.`id`)
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`resumes` AS `Resume`
ON (`Resume`.`user_id` = `User`.`id`)
WHERE `User`.`first_name` LIKE '%jordan%' AND NOT (`Tagging`.`tag_name` = ('done'))
LIMIT 25
Here's the SQL dump WITHOUT the DISTINCT option:
SELECT `User`.`id`, `User`.`username`, `User`.`password`, `User`.`role`, `User`.`created`, `User`.`modified`, `User`.`email`, `User`.`wordpress_user_id`, `User`.`first_name`, `User`.`last_name`, `User`.`group_id`, `Resume`.`id`, `Resume`.`user_id`, `Resume`.`wordpress_resume_id`, `Resume`.`wordpress_user_id`, `Resume`.`has_file`, `Resume`.`is_stamped`, `Resume`.`is_active`, `Resume`.`file_extension`, `Resume`.`created`, `Resume`.`modified`, `Resume`.`is_deleted`
FROM `sw`.`users` AS `User`
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`taggings_users` AS `TaggingUser`
ON (`User`.`id`= `TaggingUser`.`user_id`)
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`taggings` AS `Tagging`
ON (`TaggingUser`.`tagging_id`= `Tagging`.`id`)
LEFT JOIN `sw`.`resumes` AS `Resume`
ON (`Resume`.`user_id` = `User`.`id`)
WHERE `User`.`first_name` LIKE '%jordan%' AND NOT (`Tagging`.`tag_name` = ('done'))
LIMIT 25
Update
Here is a var_dump of $joins:
array(
(int) 0 => array(
'table' => 'taggings_users',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'alias' => 'TaggingUser',
'conditions' => array(
(int) 0 => 'User.id= TaggingUser.user_id'
)
),
(int) 1 => array(
'table' => 'taggings',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'alias' => 'Tagging',
'conditions' => array(
(int) 0 => 'TaggingUser.tagging_id= Tagging.id'
)
)
)

Answer 1

If you specify the fields option, you need to specify all fields that you want to retrieve.
By setting it ONLY to User.id, you're telling it that that is the ONLY field you want returned.
You could also try something like below as a catchall (not sure if that works, but if not, you get the idea - you're limiting your own results):
'fields' => array('*', 'DISTINCT (User.id)')