detect if core flash messages in cakephp is an error or success message - cakephp

Question

I have copied the SesionHelper from the core into myapp/View/Helper so I can alter the div structure around the message outputted.
My problem is that I cant seem to detect if the message is an error or success message from the default cakephp message. I know I can set a flash message in my controller and add an attribute. But there doesn't seem to be any extra data that I can see from the core messages.
Example if the data is saved to the database i wish to show the message as green. Or if the data could not be saved then as red message.
public function flash($key = 'flash', $attrs = array()) {
$out = false;
if (CakeSession::check('Message.' . $key)) {
$flash = CakeSession::read('Message.' . $key);
$message = $flash['message'];
unset($flash['message']);
if (!empty($attrs)) {
$flash = array_merge($flash, $attrs);
}
if ($flash['element'] === 'default') {
$class = 'message';
if (!empty($flash['params']['class'])) {
$class = $flash['params']['class'];
}
$out = '<div id="' . $key . 'Message" class="' . $class . '">' . $message . '</div>';
} elseif (!$flash['element']) {
$out = $message;
} else {
$options = array();
if (isset($flash['params']['plugin'])) {
$options['plugin'] = $flash['params']['plugin'];
}
$tmpVars = $flash['params'];
$tmpVars['message'] = $message;
$out = $this->_View->element($flash['element'], $tmpVars, $options);
}
CakeSession::delete('Message.' . $key);
}
return $out;
}

Answer 1

What you are doing is reinventing the wheel as far as CakePHP is concerned.
You can specify an element as the second argument when you set a flash message in your controller method:
$this->Session->setFlash('Your record has been saved', 'flash_success');
Then in elements create an element Element/flash_success.ctp like this:
<div class="alert-success"><?php echo $message;?></div>
And finally in your view:
<?php echo $this->Session->flash()?>
Here is the section that deals with this in detail from the official documentation:
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/components/sessions.html#creating-notification-messages