Cakephp Custom Datasource Save/Update - php

Question

Using the latest CakePHP build 1.3.6.
I'm writing a custom datasource for a external REST API. I've got all the read functionality working beautifully. I'm struggling with the Model::save & Model::create.
According to the documentation, the below methods must be implemented (see below and notice it does not mention calculate). These are all implemented. However, I was getting an "Fatal error: Call to undefined method ApiSource::calculate()". So I implemented the ApiSource::calculate() method.
describe($model) listSources() At
least one of:
create($model, $fields = array(), $values = array())
read($model, $queryData = array())
update($model, $fields = array(), $values = array())
delete($model, $id
= null)
public function calculate(&$model, $func, $params = array())
{
pr($model->data); // POST data
pr($func); // count
pr($params); // empty
return '__'.$func; // returning __count;
}
If make a call from my model
$this->save($this->data)
It is calling calculate, but none of the other implemented methods. I would expect it to either call ApiSource::create() or ApiSource::update()
Any thoughts or suggustions?

Answer 1

Leo, you tipped me in the right direction. The answer was in the model that was using the custom datasource. That model MUST define your _schema.
class User extends AppModel
{
public $name = 'User';
public $useDbConfig = 'cvs';
public $useTable = false;
public $_schema = array(
'firstName' => array(
'type' => 'string',
'length' => 30
),
'lastName' => array(
'type' => 'string',
'length' => 30
),
'email' => array(
'type' => 'string',
'length' => 50
),
'password' => array(
'type' => 'string',
'length' => 20
)
);
...
}
I'm guessing that if you implement a describe() method in the custom datasource that will solve the problem too. In this case it needed to be predefined to authorize the saves and/or creation.

Answer 2

From the API: http://api13.cakephp.org/class/dbo-source#method-DboSourcecalculate
"Returns an SQL calculation, i.e. COUNT() or MAX()"
A quick search in ~/cake finds 20 matches in 8 files. One of those is the definition in dbo_source.php
The other seven are:
dbo_source.test.php
code_coverage_manager.test.php
code_coverage_manager.php
dbo_db2.php
model.php
tree.php
containable.php
Without delving too deeply into this, I suspect your problem lies in Model::save
You'll probably have to define a calculate method to suit the structure of your custom datasource because Cake won't know how to do that.