Cakephp Find Recursive Associations - cakephp

Question

My Cakephp Application Has the following models with relations ships
class Category extends AppModel {
public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Product' => array(
'className' => 'Product',
'joinTable' => 'products_categories',
'foreignKey' => 'category_id',
'associationForeignKey' => 'product_id',
'unique' => 'keepExisting',
),
);
}
class Product extends AppModel {
public $primaryKey = 'id';
public $hasMany = array(
'ProductSwatch' => array(
'className' => 'ProductSwatch',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => true
),
'ProductDimension' => array(
'className' => 'ProductDimension',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => true
),
'ProductCare' => array(
'className' => 'ProductCare',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => true
),
'ProductDimension' => array(
'className' => 'ProductDimension',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => false,
),
'ProductCare' => array(
'className' => 'ProductCare',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => false,
),
'Review' => array(
'className' => 'Review',
'foreignKey' => 'product_id',
'dependent' => true,
)
);
}
When i am finding all the Category elements only Product Model contents are coming is there any way to get the Products associations(ProductDimension, ProductSwatches, etc) when we fetch the Categories model?

Answer 1

By default CakePHP 2 recursion level is 1st level association only.
You can use recursive option of find (or model property) to fetch deep associations.
For more information about model recursive property, see: http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/model-attributes.html#recursive
For example:
$this->Category->find('all', array(
'recursive' => 2,
'conditions' => array(), // Your conditions, etc.
));
Another (and better way) is using Containable behaviour.
add
public $actsAs = array('Containable');
to your model(s) to enable Containable behaviour. Then you can use:
$this->Category->find('all', array(
'contain' => array(
'Product' => array(
'ProductSwatch',
'ProductDimension',
'ProductCare',
'Review',
),
),
'conditions' => array(), // Your conditions, etc.
));
to fetch deeper associations.
For more information about Containable behaviour and deeper associations, see http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/behaviors/containable.html#containing-deeper-associations