cakePHP and conditions on deep association - cakephp

Question

The data structure is:
tenants {id, ...}
contracts {id, active, tenant_id, ...}
debts {id, contract_id, ...}
the desired data is:
tenants list, filtered by contracts and debts.
conditions:
contract must be active.
tenant has debts
keep in mind:
tenant has many contracts
contracts has many debts
contain won't help, since it will not filter the tenants.
My idea is to manually create the joins, and add filters to them. but how exactly?
my questions:
How can i do it with native cake?
how would you do it?

Answer 1

You have to put all this logic on models.
For each tables create a model (You can use the Cake Bake tools or write it by yourself).
class Tenant extends AppModel{
public $hasMany = array('Contract'); // feel free to ajust settings
}
class Contract extends AppModel{
public $belongsTo = array('Tenant');
public $hasMany = array('Debt');
}
class Debt extends AppModel{
public $belongsTo = array('Contract');
}
Now you can use on your Tenant controller something like that :
function action(){
$this->Tenant->recursive = 2;
$all_contracts = $this->Tenant->find('all');
}
But that solution is not the best, you can wrap this logic into model's method.
class Tenant extends AppModel
{
public $hasMany = array('Contract');
public function contracts($is_active = true) {
/*
Create your own logic here, you have many solutions to retrieve data like
load the containable behaviors, create a custom find method, custom query ...
Do stuff here not in controller action.
*/
$this->Behaviors->load('Containable');
$this->contain(array(
'Contract' => array(
'conditions' => array(
'active' => $is_active
),
'Debt'
)
));
return $this->find('all');
}
}
class Contract extends AppModel{
public $belongsTo = array('Tenant');
public $hasMany = array('Debt');
}
class Debt extends AppModel{
public $belongsTo = array('Contract');
}
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/behaviors/containable.html
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/retrieving-your-data.html#creating-custom-find-types