CakePHP Pagination 'conditions' limited by $this->Session->read() - cakephp

Question

I'm trying to limit my pagination results by the $this->Session->read('Player.team_id')... so that the logged in user can only see his related team members.
PlayersController.php
public $paginate = array(
'conditions' => array(
'Player.team_id' => $this->Session->read('Player.0.Team.id')
),
'limit' => 20,
'order' => array('Player.fullname' => 'asc')
);
public function index() {
$this->Paginator->settings = $this->paginate;
$this->Player->recursive = 0;
$this->set('players', $this->Paginator->paginate());
}
This causes an error when viewing player/index
Error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE
File: /home/www/public_html/dev/app/Controller/PlayersController.php
Line: 21
If I hardcode the 'conditions' as below then it works fine and only retrieves the records I want
'conditions' => array('Player.team_id' => 1)
In the Player.php model login action it writes the Session Variable Team.id and Team.name.
I have used the $this->Session->read else where in my app (views and other models) and it works fine. It just doesn't seem to work with in the pagination component?

Answer 1

This is simply invalid PHP syntax, class members can only be initialized with constant values, that is values that can be evaluated at compile time (strings, numbers, booleans, arrays, etc...)
Assign the session value at runtime in the Controller::beforeFilter() callback (or even directly in the index() action in case appropriate) instead:
public $paginate = array(
'limit' => 20,
'order' => array('Player.fullname' => 'asc')
);
public function beforeFilter() {
parent::beforeFilter();
$this->paginate['conditions'] = array(
'Player.team_id' => $this->Session->read('Player.0.Team.id')
);
}
Also as pointed out in the comments, make sure that the session key you are accessing actually exists and holds the expected value!
See also http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.properties.php