Calling a model method from the controller in CakePHP - cakephp

Question

Is there no way to access a Model instance as an object (as opposed to as an array) within a Model method in CakePHP? As a super-simplified example, my instinct tells me it ought to be possible to do something like this:
Bird.php
...
public function specialName()
{
$name = $this->name;
return "Oh wow! It's ".$name;
}
If I call this method from my BirdController.php like so:
public function view($id) {
if (!$id) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Invalid bird'));
}
$this->Bird->id = $id;
$this->set('results', $this->Bird->specialName());
}
... then it displays in the view file as "Oh wow! It's Bird" rather than "Oh wow! It's Freddy" (i.e. the name of the model, not the name of the model instance).
I've tried variations on this general approach, to no avail. It seems I must access the information via an array, like so:
Bird.php
...
public function specialName($id)
{
$data = $this->findById($id);
$name = $data['Bird']['name'];
return "Oh wow! It's ".$name;
}
This seems WAY over-complicated to me. What am I missing? Ultimately I want to be able to access dependent models in my model function, e.g. get all of the associated Bird->Subspecies. It seems like this would be much easier to do working with objects.

Answer 1

If you would have read the documentation about models you would know that Model::$name is the name of the model. There is also Model::alias which is the name of the model when it is accessed trough associations and the association is named different than the model name.
Cakes ORM does not return results as data objects, 3.0 will do that. Most easy way to return a specifc field right now is to do this in a model:
public function specialName($id) {
$this->id = $id;
return $this->field('name');
}
Also the "Oh wow..." should go to the view where you would echo the name that you set as $result.
If you want data objects, I know there is a plugin, a behaviour that will turn the result sets into data objects. Just google it.
Ultimately I want to be able to access dependent models in my model
function, e.g. get all of the associated Bird->Subspecies.
Did you read the book? See this section. With containable you can control what exactly you want to fetch from the associated models.
I recommend you to do the blog tutorial first to get an idea of the basics of how CakePHP works.