How to implement a "related posts" element in CakePHP? - cakephp

Question

My main model is Post, and it is populated with many different info fields (name, designation, status, created, modified, etc.), one of which is its relationship with the Category model. (Post belongs to Category, Category has many Posts.)
So far everything works as it should. I can save and edit the category_id, and I have an index for each category with each post that belongs to it. Everything is peachy.
Now I require to implement a special extra functionality, but all of my searches for a possible solution have been in vain. I have some ideas, but I don't know how to implement any of those, and I'm not sure what the best practice would be in this case.
What I need is to add a little "Similar/Related posts" module below the post's info in the view view, loading some basic info (name, designation, creation date, etc.) from 3 random posts from the same category as the current post.
I thought I could try a find('all') function in an element (loading the category_id as a variable from the view action).
This is my controller:
class PostsController extends AppController {
public function view($id) {
if (!$id) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Invalid post.'));
}
$post = $this->Post->findById($id);
if (!$post) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Post not found.'));
}
$this->set('post', $post);
}
}
In the Post model I have:
class Post extends AppModel {
public $belongsTo = array('Category');
}
And in the Category model I have:
public $hasMany = array(
'Post' => array(
'className' => 'Post',
'foreignKey' => 'category_id',
'dependent' => false
)
);
Currently I only need to load those "related posts" in the view view, but I'm not sure I won't be needing to do so later on. (That's why I'm thinking in an Element for the module.)

Answer 1

Its not good to write query in view, either you can use the helper or you can do it directly in the controller itself, in your controller you can try the below code :
class PostsController extends AppController {
public function view($id) {
if (!$id) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Invalid post.'));
}
$post = $this->Post->findById($id);
if (!$post) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Post not found.'));
}
$relatedPosts = $this->Post->find('all', array('conditions' => array('Post.category_id' => $post['Post']['category_id'], 'NOT' => array('Post.id' => $id)), 'limit' => 3));
$this->set('relatedPosts', $relatedPosts);
$this->set('post', $post);
}
}
And then in your view you can check !empty($relatedPosts) and within that you can loop on the $relatedPosts and show whatever fields you want to show.