CakePHP Access a different table my view - cakephp

Question

I have two tables Contact and Quote, this is a one to many relationship (i.e. one contact can have many quotes). Foreign keys are all setup correctly.
When I go to create a new quote I want to be able to select from a drop down list of contacts.
My code looks like this:
Contact Model:
class Contact extends AppModel {
public $hasMany = array('Quote' => array('className' => 'Quote', 'foreignKey' => 'contact_id'));
}
Quote Model
class Quote extends AppModel {
public $belongsTo = array('Contact' => array('className' => 'Contact', 'foreignKey' => 'contact_id'));
public $validate = array(
'name' => array(
'rule' => 'notEmpty'
),
'amount' => array(
'rule' => 'notEmpty'
)
);
}
Add method in QuotesController:
public function add() {
// TODO: Update this so the user can select the id from a drop down list.
$this->request->data['Quote']['contact_id'] = '1';
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
$this->Quote->create(); // This line writes the details to the database.
if ($this->Quote->save($this->request->data)) {
$this->Session->setFlash('Your quote has been saved.');
$this->redirect(array('action' => 'index'));
} else {
$this->Session->setFlash('Unable to add your quote.');
}
}
}
As you can see I'm currently just hard coding the user id as part of the add process.

Answer 1

I'm assuming you have read and are using this method in your view.
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/helpers/form.html#FormHelper::select
Less easy to find (or easier to overlook) is this:
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/retrieving-your-data.html#find-list
So in your controller you want to do
$contacts = $this->Article->find('list', array('fields' => array('Contact.id', 'Contact.name'));
$this->set(compact('contacts'));
Then in the view:
echo $this->Form->select('contact_id', $contacts);
Modify the fields for the find to reflect what is actually in your model. And if you need fields combined, you can possibly do it with virtual fields: http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/virtual-fields.html. Otherwise you can select the fields that need to be composited and use a foreach loop to combine them into a id=>[displayed value] array to pass on to the view. Only the id is the important thing and has to correspond to an id in the Contacts table.