Cakephp - Two tables in one page - cakephp

Question

I'm trying to understand Cakephp. I follow the manual from the official page http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/tutorials-and-examples/blog/blog.html and now i can display a few posts on my page. For some reasons all files and functions has to have the name "Posts" but when you want to search for a database table you have to write "post" [$this->set('posts', $this->Post->find('all'));]. WHY? I read about CakePHP Conventions and it doesn't make sense. What if i have a hello.ctp page and a "goodmorning" table name? I spent 2 days on this and i ALWAYS end up to this: Error: Call to a member function find() on a non-object. I want to display my posts and my "goodmorning" table on the same page.
Just to make it clear, I have two tables:
CREATE TABLE `Posts` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`title` varchar(50),
`body` TEXT,
`created` DATETIME DEFAULT NULL,
`modified` DATETIME DEFAULT NULL
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
CREATE TABLE `Comments` (
`id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`name` VARCHAR(50),
`comment` TEXT,
`created` DATETIME DEFAULT NULL,
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
PostController.php
<?php
class PostsController extends AppController {
public function index() {
$posts = $this->Post->find('all');
$this -> set ('posts',$posts);
$comments = $this->comment->find('all');
$this -> set ('comments',$comments);
}
}
?>
PostsModel.php
<?php
class Posts extends AppModel {
}
?>
CommentsModel.php
<?php
class Comments extends AppModel {
}
?>
If i remove those lines from PostController:
$comments = $this->comment->find('all');
$this -> set ('comments',$comments);
the "Posts" table will show up (localhost/cake/Posts). In pure php i can build this in a few minutes but in cakephp i really feel hopeless

Answer 1

The line $this->set('posts', $this->Post->find('all')); is going to your Posts model, executing the find() function, and then setting that data to the view variable $posts. You could change the variable name to 'Posts' in the first argument of $this->set() and the view variable the data would be set to would be $Posts.
CakePHP's naming conventions don't apply to variable names. You should define a style that you like for them and stick to it. The help documents typically use all lower case names with words separated by underscores, but that has no bearing on anything unless you're referencing one of CakePHP's pre-defined values.
The issue with your goodmorning table name is that table names by CakePHP convention should be lower case, plural, and the words should be separated by underscores. If you want the "Cake Magic" to connect all of your names together invisibly by convention, what you want to create is a database table named good_mornings, a Model named GoodMorning and a Controller named GoodMorningsController.

Answer 2

In Cakephp
For using table with custom names
<?php
class Post extends AppModel {
public $useTable = 'goodmorning';
}
?>
For using view with custom names
public function index() {
$this->autoRender = false;
$this->render('hello');
}

Answer 3

table name must be lowercase and plurals (e.g. posts)
model name must be lower case except for the first letter, and singular (e.g. Post)
controller name must be plural and attached to the word "Controller" (e.g. PostsController)
table id must be named "id" (but could be named with other names, you must specify the different name inside the Model class. e.g. $this->Post->id = $newId)