CakePHP controller method to fetch data from multiple related tables - cakephp

Question

Currently i am working with CakePHP 3.x and have a following use case.
Department (id, name, description)
Designations (id, name, description)
Users (id, name, description)
DepartmentDesignations (id, departments_id, designations_id)
DepartmentDesignationUsers (id, department_designations_id, users_id)
Above mentioned are 5 different tables and their columns are listed in brackets. Following is the relationship between these.
Department has many designations. So in order to handle this i have created another DepartmentDesignations.
DepartmentDesignations has many users. So in order to handle this i have created DepartmentDesignationUsers.
I have defined following function in DepartmentsController and my expectation is that i need to get all the following information in single call.
- all the departments
- all the designations in each department (if any)
- all the users for each department designation (if any)
public function index()
{
$departments = $this->Departments->find('all')
->contain('DepartmentDesignations.Designations')
->contain('Users');
$this->set(compact('departments'));
$this->set('_serialize', ['departments']);
}
I have also defined the following in DepartmentsTable.php
$this->belongsToMany('Designations', [
'joinTable' => 'department_designations',
'foreignKey' => 'departments_id',
'targetForeignKey' => 'designations_id'
]);
$this->hasMany('DepartmentDesignations', [
'className' => 'OrganizationManagement.DepartmentDesignations',
'foreignKey' => 'departments_id'
]);
$this->hasMany('DepartmentDesignationUsers',[
'className' => 'OrganizationManagement.DepartmentDesignationUsers',
'foreignKey' => 'department_designations_id'
]);
$this->belongsToMany('Users',[
'joinTable' => 'department_designation_users',
'foreignKey' => 'department_designations_id',
'targetForeignKey' => 'users_id'
]);
I get the following response.
{
"departments": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Organization",
"description": "",
"parent_id": 0,
"users": [],
"department_designations": [
{
"id": 1,
"departments_id": 1,
"designations_id": 1,
"designation": {
"id": 1,
"name": "Brand head",
"description": "",
"level": 1
}
},
{
"id": 6,
"departments_id": 1,
"designations_id": 6,
"designation": {
"id": 6,
"name": "CEO",
"description": "",
"level": 1
}
}
]
},
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Production",
"description": "",
"parent_id": 1,
"users": [],
"department_designations": [
{
"id": 3,
"departments_id": 2,
"designations_id": 5,
"designation": {
"id": 5,
"name": "Production assistant manager",
"description": "",
"level": 3
}
},
{
"id": 5,
"departments_id": 2,
"designations_id": 4,
"designation": {
"id": 4,
"name": "Production head",
"description": "",
"level": 2
}
}
]
},
{
"id": 3,
"name": "R&D",
"description": "",
"parent_id": 1,
"users": [],
"department_designations": [
{
"id": 2,
"departments_id": 3,
"designations_id": 2,
"designation": {
"id": 2,
"name": "R&D Manager",
"description": "",
"level": 2
}
}
]
},
{
"id": 4,
"name": "Development",
"description": "",
"parent_id": 3,
"users": [],
"department_designations": [
{
"id": 4,
"departments_id": 4,
"designations_id": 2,
"designation": {
"id": 2,
"name": "R&D Manager",
"description": "",
"level": 2
}
}
]
},
{
"id": 5,
"name": "Purchase",
"description": "",
"parent_id": 1,
"users": [],
"department_designations": []
}
]
}
I need the user information within department_designations array. So in this case what changes i need to do.

Answer 1

On the basis of your information there is no direct relation between
Departments and Users table, So you can not use contain that way for users.
Make it something like this:
public function index()
{
$departments = $this->Departments->find('all')
->contain('DepartmentDesignations.Designations','DepartmentDesignations.DepartmentDesignationUsers.Users');
$this->set(compact('departments'));
$this->set('_serialize', ['departments']);
}
See here: Retrieving Associated Data in CakePHP3.