CakePHP 2.0 - How to remove join tables from containable - cakephp

Question

I'm using Containable in an action like this:
public function index()
{
$this->User->recursive = -1;
$this->User->Behaviors->load('Containable');
if ($this->RequestHandler->accepts('xml'))
{
$this->set('users', array("Users" => array("UserEntry" => $this->User->find('all',
array(
'fields' => array('User.id','User.username', 'User.email', 'User.created', 'User.modified'),
'contain' => array(
'Group' => array(
'fields' => array('Group.id','Group.name','Group.created'),
)
)
)
))));
}
else if ($this->RequestHandler->accepts('json'))
{
}
else if ($this->RequestHandler->accepts('html'))
{
$this->set('users', $this->paginate());
}
}
It gets all of the data I need, but there is one thing that I can't figure out. There is a HABTM relationship between users and groups with a join table users_groups. I'm serializing the output of find('all') into Xml for a REST Api in the view. The problem is that the data contains an extra 'GroupsUser' array nested in my 'Groups' array. The users of the Api do not need to know about the join table information so I would like to remove it. The current output looks like this:
index.ctp
<?php
//debug($users);
$xml = Xml::build($users, array('return' => 'domdocument'));
echo $xml->saveXML();
?>
output of index.ctp -> http://www.pastie.org/2789367
See the GroupsUser tag nested in the Group tag? That is what I want to remove. If there is not a nice easy way to do this I will either build the xml by hand using some loops in the view or create my own find method in the the model and use unset() on GroupsUser. Both of those solutions are not ideal, so I'm hoping someone here has a better one. :)

Answer 1

I you are positive that everything is being done in a join (only belongsTo associations) you may use the containable component with autofields in false something like this
$this->Post->Behaviors->attach('Containable', array('autoFields' => false));
(this is to attach it dynamiclly in the controller part.
if your find has hasMany association, you will have 2 queries instead of so cake needs to fetch for this fields to do the join. You may also use linkable component for this case, that put all in joins instead of a lot of queries giving you chance to select only the fields you want.
here is a link for the linkable component