conditions in find method - cakephp

Question

I have 3 models,
Mentor, MentorAttrib, Attrib where MentorAttrib is a join table. it lists Mentor.id -> Attrib.id
This is my find
$cond = array("Mentor.is_listed"=>1);
$contain_cond = array();
$contain = array(
'MentorAttrib' => array(
'fields' => array('MentorAttrib.id' ,'MentorAttrib.attrib_id'),
'Attrib'
)
);
if(! empty($this->request->data))
{
debug($this->request->data);
//skills
if(! empty($this->request->data['bookingSkills']))
{
$cond = array('MentorAttrib.attrib_id' => $this->request->data['bookingSkills']);
}
}
$this->request->data = $this->Mentor->find('all', array(
'conditions' => $cond,
'fields' => array('Mentor.id','Mentor.first_name','Mentor.last_name','Mentor.img'),
'contain' => $contain
));
I want to filter the result by the skills.
[bookingSkills] => Array
(
[0] => 2
[1] => 4
[2] => 10
)
The error im getting is
Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'MentorAttrib.attrib_id' in 'where clause'
This is the data set
http://pastebin.com/85uBFEfF

Answer 1

You need a join
By default, CakePHP will only create joins for hasOne and belongsTo associations - any other type of association generates another query. As such you cannot filter results based on a condition from a hasMany or hasAndBelongsToMany association by just injecting conditions and using contain.
Forcing a join
On option to achieve the query you need is to use the joins key. As shown in the docs You can also add a join, easily, like so:
$options['joins'] = array(
array('table' => 'mentor_attribs',
'alias' => 'MentorAttrib',
'type' => 'LEFT',
'conditions' => array(
'Mentor.id = MentorAttrib.mentor_id',
)
)
);
$data = $this->Mentor->find('all', $options);
This allows the flexibility to generate any kind of query.