CakePHP relational models - cakephp

Question

Basically i have 3 tables users , jobs and users_jobs.
users_jobs is id,job_id,user_id and is basically used for keeping track of what jobs a user has assigned.
Jobs can be assigned.unassigned by adding/removing entries in the users_jobs tables.
In terms of cakephp im struggling to understand how to model this.
So for i have a Job model that has the attribute
public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'User' => array(
'className' => 'User',
'joinTable' => 'users_jobs',
'foreignKey' => 'job_id',
'associationForeignKey' => 'user_id'
)
);
My User model has the attribute
public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Job' => array(
'className' => 'Job',
'joinTable' => 'users_jobs',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'associationForeignKey' => 'job_id'
)
);
In my JobsController.php i have the function unassign which is designed to unassign a user from a job. how can i modify the users_jobs table a remove the relation without remove the user or job ?

Answer 1

lets say you have three fields on user_jobs:
status, user_id and job_id
Assuming your table user_jobs has one field status which is defines assigned or unassigned
status=1 => Unassigned
status=0 => assigned
Step 1: Create one methods in JobsController.php
function userjobs($jobId, $userId, $assign = 1){
# $assign is 1 means true and 0 means unassigned
# if you want to assign a job to user
$data['UserJob']['user_id'] = $userId;
$data['UserJob']['job_id'] = $jobId;
App::import('model','UserJob');
$UserJob = new UserJob();
if($assign == 1){
$UserJob->save($data);
}else{
$UserJob->updateAll(
array('UserJob.status'=>1),
array('UserJob.user_id'=>$userId,'UserJob.job_id'=>$jobId));
}
}
Step 2: call this method on ajax.
It will do the desired thing.