passing data to controller from view in cakephp - cakephp

Question

I'm new to cakephp. I went through Andrew Perkins's video tutorials. It is a great tutorial for absolute beginners.
What I want to do is get the username to a hidden field from login page and keep it in a view.and pass it to the controller and save it to the database when it is necessary.
right now I have a add.ctp, BabiesController.php as the controller and baby.php as the model.
since I haven't completed the login page I would like to hard code the username for instance.
here are my codes. hope you guys can help me.
this is the database.emails address has been used as primary key for babyprents table.parent column int the babies table is a foreign key to the email address in the babyparents table.
Model : baby.php
<?php
class Baby extends AppModel {
var $name = 'Baby';
}
Controller : BabiesController.php
<?php
class BabiesController extends AppController {
var $name = 'Baby';
function index()
{
$this->set('babies',$this->Baby->find('all'));
}
function add()
{
if(!empty($this->data))
{
$this->Session->setFlash($this->data);
if($this->Baby->save($this->data))
{
$this->Session->setFlash('Successful');
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));
}
else{
$this->Session->setFlash('unsuccessful');
}
}
}
}
View: add.ctp
<h2>Sign up</h2>
<?php
echo $this->form->create('Baby',array('action'=>'add'));
echo $this->form->input('firstName');
echo $this->form->input('middleName');
echo $this->form->input('lastName');
echo $this->form->input('birthday');
echo $this->form->input('age');
echo $this->form->input('doctor');
echo $this->form->end('Sign up');
?>
all the data has been saved except for email address.any guide will be appreciated. thank you all.

Answer 1

In your controller use saveAll($this->data):
function add()
{
if(!empty($this->data))
{
$this->Session->setFlash($this->data);
if($this->Baby->saveAll($this->data))
{
$this->Session->setFlash('Successful');
$this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));
}
else{
$this->Session->setFlash('unsuccessful');
}
}
}
In your add.ctp put this line
echo $this->form->input('Babyparent.email');