CakePHP retrieve data, associate models, containable behavior - php

Question

I can't seem to figure out how the containable behavior works, or how to retrieve the data from (and based) on associated models.
I need to put the following MySQL query in the cakephp find('all') function, I know i can use the query builder for the sql syntax but I want to use find function and want to figure out how it works.
SELECT events.id, events.name FROM events, user_roles
WHERE user_roles.event_id = events.id
AND user_roles.user_id = 1
The idea is simple, in the user_roles the user_id, role_id and event_id are stored. Now I want to retrieve all events for a certain user (here user_id = 1). I tried some variations on the following:
$data = $this->Event->find('all',array(
'contain' => array(
'UserRole' => array(
'fields' => array('id'),
'conditions' => array(
'UserRole.user_id' => $this->Auth->user('id')
)
)
)
));
But this keeps returning all events. What I want is an array like (or any other result with the same associated data):
array(
[0] => array(
[Event] => array(
'id' => 1,
'name' => 'Event Name'
),
[UserRole] => array(
'role_id' => 2,
'event_id'=> 1
)
[1] => array(
.... etc ...
)
The following models and associations are defined
class Event extends AppModel {
public $hasMany = array(
'UserRole' => array(
'className' => 'UserRole',
'foreignKey' => 'event_id',
'dependent' => false,
)
)
)
class UserRole extends AppModel {
public $belongsTo = array(
'Event' => array(
'className' => 'Event',
'foreignKey' => 'event_id'
),
)
)
So how does it work ;).
Edit:
I forgot to mention that I've set in AppModel.php:
public $recursive = -1;

Answer 1

Containable finds the associated records for the original query. What you are doing is a find('all') on your Event model with absolutely no conditions, so it will return all Events.
Then Containable will retrieve all the UserRole records that are for the given user_id and are also associated to the Event by the event_id
If you want to only retrieve events for the given user, you could do it one of two ways
Via the Event->UserRole association and chained models:
$data = $this->Event->UserRole->find('first', array(
'conditions' => array('UserRole.user_id' => $this->Auth->user('id'),
'contain' => array('Event')
));
$events = $data['Event'];
or
Via your current code and then using the Hash::extract method to get the Events that match. (Hash is a CakePHP core class)
$events = Hash::extract('/UserRole[user_id='.$this->Auth->user('id').']/..', $data);