Containable with Condition - cakephp

Question

I am using containable with CakePHP. My tried code is ...
public function detail($slug = "") {
$this->Poet->contain('User.id', 'User.full_name', 'Song.id', 'Song.name', 'Song.name_hindi', 'Song.slug');
$result = $this->Poet->findBySlug($slug);
if (!$result) {
throw new NotFoundException(__('Invalid Poet - ' . $slug));
}
pr($result);
die();
$this->Poet->id = $result['Poet']['id'];
$this->set('result', $result);
}
Like this. Now I have Song.status as my association with Song table. I want to fetch only those records that has status = 1. Is it possible? Can I select only active records with my piece of code.

Answer 1

Use a normal find
While the magic findBy* methods are handy from time to time, it's a good idea to only use them for trivial queries - your query is nolonger trivial. Instead use a normal find call e.g.:
$result = $this->Poet->find('first', array(
'contain' => array(
'User' => array(
'id',
'full_name'
),
'Song' => array(
'id',
'name',
'name_hindi',
'slug',
)
),
'conditions' => array(
'slug' => $slug,
'Song.status' => 1 // <-
)
));
Does a Poet hasMany songs?
You don't mention your associations in the question, which is rather fundamental to providing an accurate answer, however it seems likely that a poet has many songs. With that in mind the first example will generate an sql error, as there will be no join between Poet and Song.
Containable does permit filtering associated data e.g.:
$result = $this->Poet->find('first', array(
'contain' => array(
'User' => array(
'id',
'full_name'
),
'Song' => array(
'id',
'name',
'name_hindi',
'slug',
'Song.status = 1' // <-
)
),
'conditions' => array(
'slug' => $slug
)
));
This will return the poet (whether they have relevant songs or not), and only the songs with a status of "1". You can achieve exactly the same thing by defining the condition in the association definition (either directly in the model or by using bindModel).