I was planning my database and since CakePHP hasn't named its classes with its own prefixes, there are many classes that may collison with model classes created according to naming conventions.
So my question is in three parts:
Is there a list of database
table names that are reserved or a
simple way to check if it is? It
would be a pain if I plan database
with 100 tables and notice some of
the tables and their connections would
have to be renamed...
Is there a simple way around it without breaking any CakePHP magic? Is it adviced? Would naming the tables in other way by adding own prefix 'my_' or similar at the beginning of table name the best way?
Is namespaces or something similar coming to
CakePHP version 2 that would allow
use of all kinds of table names?
No, there aren't. Cake doesn't care what you name your tables as long as you adhere to Cake's naming conventions. It generates the schemas it uses for magic model methods the first time a model/s is loaded by a controller; you don't have to lift a finger. See http://book.cakephp.org/view/903/Model-and-Database-Conventions
Best advice: don't fight Cake on this. If you really cannot adhere to to Cake's conventions, you might as well not use Cake; it's stupidly difficult, confusing and succeeding just means you've lost most of Cake's heavy lifting abilities. Pluralizing your table names isn't THAT bad, and Cake will be happy.
This functionality is already available in 1.3 - name your tables anything that pleases you (as long as they're plural words.)
-- You'd probably be well-served to check out baking apps in the console so you can get familiar with what Cake wants to see and how it works on different table layouts.
Edit after clarification:
Your models, controllers, and view directories all share a common name, like so:
// in /app/models/rate.php
class Rate extends AppModel {
var $name = 'Rate';
// in /app/controllers/rates_controller.php -- note the underscore
class RatesController extends AppController {
// controllers are capitalized + plural
var $name = 'Rates';
// in /app/views/rates/*.ctp - Cake's magic autoRender expects to find a view file with
// the same name as the action rendering it - the view for Rates::index() is index.ctp
All of your models extend cake's AppModel class (which extends cake's Model class), no prefix needed. All controllers will extend Cake's AppController class - the class name is suffixed with Controller, and the file name is suffixed with _Controller.
You'll fine AppModel and AppController in /app, and they exist expressly for whatever app-wide custom methods / properties you may have. Since all of your models / controllers extend them, inheritance automatically disperses whatever properties / methods you place in them - for example, Auth. ^_^
But you can still name a table Models, or Controllers, or Views, or whatever, I guess. The $name property is an alias; you can create multiple instances of the same table in the same model by aliasing it with a different name. You can create models without tables, and you can switch between multiple tables - or databases, or servers - in a single model. You can also create non-database-type data objects (such as flat xml files) for your models. Dynamically named classes / methods ($$Model::save(), etc) are what's running under the hood anyway. I've done something similar in iterations for the sake of DRYing up my app and I didn't have a problem. (Although I personally doubt actually pulling off a local model named Model would be worth the effort you'd put into the experiment...)
And on that note, Cake's API spells out all it's classes their methods, etc. (generates off the comments in the codebase):
http://api13.cakephp.org/classes
HTH. :D
I know from experience you can't use table names like 'files' and 'models' because they create classes that are already used by Cake for other things such as File and Model.
I haven't come across any other problems like this but I'm sure they are there to be found.
I would suggest avoiding the use of any name used by cake core classes.
I know this is a bit of an old thread but just came across it searching for something else. I think this shoud help answer question #2. In database.php you can add your db table prefix in the DATABASE_CONFIG class /app/config/database.php. See the last key in the config array below:
var $default = array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'persistent' => false,
'host' => 'localhost',
'login' => 'user',
'password' => 'password',
'database' => 'database_name',
'prefix' => '',
);
Related
Cakephp 2.10 ?
$text = $this->PrivacyPolicy->find('all', array(
'fields' => array('id', 'title', 'description')
));
How PrivacyPolicy is becoming a model role as there is no Model class in the files or relation with the database ?
Magic and unicorn dust... otherwise known as naming conventions and auto-models.
If no concrete model class can be found, CakePHP will create an instance of the AppModel base class instead, which will lookup the database table based on the the model name that you've used. So in your case the AppModel instance will look up the data in privacy_policies (lowercased, underscored, plural variant of the model name).
Quote from the docs:
CakePHP will dynamically create a model object for you if it cannot find a corresponding file in /app/Model. This also means that if your model file isn’t named correctly (for instance, if it is named ingredient.php or Ingredients.php rather than Ingredient.php), CakePHP will use an instance of AppModel rather than your model file (which CakePHP assumes is missing). If you’re trying to use a method you’ve defined in your model, or a behavior attached to your model, and you’re getting SQL errors that are the name of the method you’re calling, it’s a sure sign that CakePHP can’t find your model and you need to check the file names, your application cache, or both.
https://book.cakephp.org/2/en/models.html#understanding-models
We are using the new cakePHP ORM and I have some issues understanding the way the new ORM works when dealing with hasMany associations.
E.g. We have a Table called "Users" which has a hasMany relation to another Table "UsersAbsences". The definition and handling itself works fine. We have defined the Table-Objects and the Entities.
$this->addAssociations([
'hasMany' => [
'UsersAbsences' => [
'className' => 'UsersAbsences',
'propertyName' => 'absences',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id'
]
]);
Within our UsersTable we've created a custom method which retrieves details to one User, using the QueryBuilders ->contain Method to fetch the hasMany-associated "UsersAbsences" defined by property "absence". We're setting the view-variable $user to work with the Entity in the template: Works fine.
...
$users->contain(['UsersAbsences',...]);
...
Now the part that puzzles me:
The Object-type of $user is "UserEntity". When I now iterate through the $user->absences... i always get CakeEntity objects, not (as I would expect) AbsenceEntity-objects.
Problem: I would like to implement a custom method in the UserAbsence-Entity which I would like to call in the template when iterating through each Absence of the user.
When using the ->contain Method for associations attached with "belongsTo", I get the correct Entity-Class.
Someone an idea how to deal with that?
Mind your terminology, entity classes do not have a Entity suffix, this makes your question a little confusing, as one might think that you've named all your classes incorrectly! Please use actual, ideally fully qualified classnames in your questions!
That being said, by default the name of the corresponding entity is figured from the table class name, that is, the singular name without Table suffix. So, for UsersTable it's User, and for UsersAbsencesTable it would be UsersAbsence, not just Absence.
So, renaming your Absence entity file/class to UsersAbsence should fix the problem. Alternatively you can manually define the entity class a table should use by specifying it via Table::entityClass().
See also
Cookbook > ... CakePHP Conventions > File and Class Name Conventions
Cookbook > ... ORM > Table Objects > Customizing the Entity Class a Table Uses
In cakephp [2.2] I have baked everything and my "people" view is quite busy with relations and phones and addresses and other related data. I do want all of that information visible in the people view, though not quite in the baked layout.
How should I handle those portions of the related data? I'm not sure if I should use elements or extended views or plugins or what, I'm kinda new to this and the documentation wasn't clear to me (at my level) which should be used when. The baked code seemed to be a monolithic approach, so I didn't get much help looking there.
Once the user chooses to edit a phone number (for instance) from the listing on the person view, it takes them to the phone edit view and then returns them to the phone listing (index view) and not the person view that they were on. How do I get them back to the person view instead?
The blog example they provide is nice, but is there a "reference" application somewhere for cakephp that demonstrates best practices on a wide variety of their features? I couldn't find one, or anything more than just a simple app example.
Thanks, I appreciate the guidance.
This is a rather broad question, but I'm going to try and answer it. I'm not sure how advanced you're programming knowledge is, so forgive me if I'm rehashing things you already know. First, this article was a great help when I started to use the framework for the first time as it explains what code should go where and why. It's the closest I've seen to a "reference application", which would actually be a great learning tool. You could try and have a look at some of the higher profile Cake applications, like Croogo (a Cake-based CMS). But the codebase is bound to be a little bit complex.
Personally I would use elements when you want to actually reuse them in different views. The problem however, is feeding the element its data. There's a method called requestAction, but even the manual states that this should be used with moderation and in combination with caching. The problem is that using a lot of requestAction calls in different elements litters your Controllers with methods and doesn't adhere to the "Skinny Controllers, Fat Models" mantra.
I would put most of the related data calls in their respective Models and call those Model methods from the Controller and feed them to the View. So let's say you want the 10 latest PhoneNumbers and related Users.
You would have a method in your PhoneNumber model which returns an array of users and their phonenumbers. Use the Containable behaviour to limit the number of related models which are returned. The code below is an example, so the practical implementation might vary:
public function getRecentPhoneNumbers($limit=10) {
$phoneNumbers = array();
$phoneNumbers = $this->find('all', array(
'limit' => $limit,
'contain' => array('User'),
'order' => 'PhoneNumber.id DESC'
));
return $phoneNumbers;
}
If the PhoneNumber and User model are properly related you would be able to call getRecentPhoneNumbers() from the User model:
$this->PhoneNumber->getRecentPhoneNumbers(10)
Or from the Users Controller:
$this->User->PhoneNumber->getRecentPhoneNumbers(10)
Say you have an element which shows a list of those 10 numbers and it accepts a variable called $recentPhonenumbers, you then set the variable in the relevant UsersController method with the returned array from the getRecentPhoneNumbers call:
$this->set('recentPhonenumbers', $this->User->PhoneNumber->getRecentPhoneNumbers(10));
This will make it available to the View that contains the element.
The extended views are relatively new (from Cake 2.1 and onwards) and I haven't used them, but seem a great way to create conditional markup.
As for the second question, redirecting the user to the person view, rather than the index view. This is a matter of adjusting the redirect (see the manual for more details) in the edit() method of the Controller. Standard baked edit() methods accept an $id parameter you can use this to redirect to the view() (which probably also accepts an $id paramater).
So the redirect probably looks something like this:
$this->redirect(array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'index'));
Change it to:
$this->redirect(array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'view', $id));
I'm relatively new to PHP. Started learning PHP, but then come across cakePHP, which is suppose to speed up development time.
After reading the documentation and blog tutorial I still don't understand the naming convention. I guess I won't know until I start to do some examples, but to get me started can someone please explain to me how cakePHP associate database tables to the controller/model layer?
The below code is an abstract from the tutorial. It is a controller method that passes the post id to the view layer. The database table is called "posts". $this->Post refers to the model class of Post, which correlates to the plural form of posts in the database.
public function view($id = null) {
$this->Post->id = $id;
$this->set('post', $this->Post->read());
}
OK I get that. Then, in the documentation it refers to the following correlation:
ReallyBigPerson and really_big_people
So it seems like the correlation actually follows the rule in English semantics. Does this mean that cakePHP has a list of singular and plural words hidden somewhere that it works from? For example can I use the below correlation without breaking the code?
This and these or Man and men or Foot and feet or Moose and moose or Goose and geese
Furthermore, if I have both singular and plural form of tables in my database, will it break the code, or will it just associate to the plural-formed table?
Just find it baffling... Why couldn't they just match the naming convention like for like with prefixes?
Inflector
CakePHP uses its Inflector class to determine the plurals of things.
Since the naming conventions dictate that model names are singular and tables names are pluralised, it uses the inflector to apply English semantics / rules to determine the plural.
If you need some help understanding the output of the Inflector, you can use the CakePHP inflector website.
Pluralisation Examples
Model name: Post
Table name: posts
Model name: User
Table name: users
Model name: Sheep
Table name: sheep
Model name: News
Table name: news
Model name: Radius
Table name: radii
Check the Inflector site to be sure.
Non-standard Table names
While CakePHP offers a standard rule set for naming and conventions, none of it is set in stone. If you want to change the name of the table used for a particular model, simply specify the table name in the model:
class Thing extends AppModel {
public $useTable = 'somethings';
}
Or, if you want a model that does not use a table:
class Post extends AppModel {
public $useTable = null;
}
I’m having a problem getting the data from my database which I created to be completely multilingual, and I hope someone here can help me.
I’ve split up all my tables in 2 parts; the “universal” table (does not contain any text that needs to be translated) and the table which contains all the fields that need to be translated with their translations.
Example tables:
base_material
id
picture
base_material_i18n
base_material_id
localization_id
name
description
review_status
review_notes
localization
id
language_name
Query to get the translations (using English (en) as a fall-back language if there is no translation available):
SELECT o.id
, o.type
, o.code
, o.position
, ifnull(t.name,d.name) name
, ifnull(t.description,d.description) description
FROM base_material o
INNER JOIN base_material_i18n d
ON ( o.id=d.base_material_id)
LEFT OUTER JOIN base_material_i18n t
ON ( d.base_material_id=t.base_material_id AND t.localization_id='nl' )
WHERE d.localization_id='en'
My question is how I can automatically get those translations (with the fall-back language as in this query) attached to my model in Yii when I’m searching for the base_material objects? (This is only 1 example table, but almost all my tables (20+) are built in this way, so if possible I would be needing something flexible)
An example of an existing system using what I would need is Propel: http://propel.posterous.com/propel-gets-i18n-behavior-and-why-it-matters
Any ideas how to go about doing that? I’ve checked the existing Yii extensions regarding multilingual sites (like Multilingual Active Record), but they all use a different database design (general information+fall-back language in the main table, translations in the i18n table), and I’m not sure how to change those extensions to use my kind of DB model.
If someone knows of a way to change that existing extension so it can use my kind of DB scheme, then that would be absolutely brilliant and probably the best way to do this.
Edit: I've added a bounty because I still can't find anything on how to let Propel work with Yii (there does exist an extension for Doctrine, but Doctrine doesn't support this kind of DB model with translations either), nor any more information as to how to deal with this using an existing Yii extension or with scopes.
Edit: 98 times viewed but only 3 upvotes and 1 comment. I can't help feeling like I'm doing something wrong here, be it in my question or application/database design; either that or my problem is just very unique (which would surprise me, as I don't think my multilingual database design is that absurd ;-). So, if anyone knows of a better all-round solution for multilingual sites with Yii and/or Propel (apart from the current extensions which I really don't like due to the duplication of text fields) or something similar, please let me know as well.
Thanks in advance!
Have you tried http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/i18n-columns/ (based on http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/stranslateablebehavior/)?
It is an alternate, simpler, approach by adding new table fields in the style of {field}_{language code}, and then setting the translated field in the original model to the current language's translation on afterFind.
In essence, it will get you up and running with translatable fields with the translated content being fetched "automatically", for good and bad :). Adding and removing languages (=columns) is done using migrations.
I am also looking for a generic solution to implement i18n into Yii models.
Recently I chose a very similar database schema for a project like you.
The only difference is, that I am not using a separate language table, I store the language information in the i18n table.
The following solution is without a custom SQL statement, but I think this could be implemented with relation params, anyway, if you're working with foreign key in your database (eg. MySQL InnoDB) gii will create relations between your base_material and base_material_i18n table, like
class BaseMaterial extends CActiveRecord
public function relations()
{
return array(
'baseMaterialI18ns' => array(self::HAS_MANY, 'base_material_i18n', 'id'),
);
}
class BaseMaterialI18n extends CActiveRecord
public function relations()
{
return array(
'baseMaterial' => array(self::BELONGS_TO, 'base_material', 'id'),
);
}
Now you'd be able to access your translations by using the object notation for relations.
$model = BaseMaterial::model()->with('baseMaterialI18ns')->findByPk(1);
foreach($model->baseMaterialI18ns AS $translation) {
if ($translation->language != "the language I need") continue:
// do something with translation data ...
}
I thought about creating a behavior or base class for those models which would act a as helper for managing the translations - pseudo code:
I18nActiveRecord extends CActiveRecord
protected $_attributesI18n;
// populate _attributesI18n on query ...
public function __get($name) {
if(isset($this->_attributesI18n['language_I_need'][$name]))
return $this->_attributesI18n[$name];
else if(isset($this->_attributesI18n['fallback_language'][$name]))
return $this->_attributesI18n[$name];
else
parent::__get();
}
CActiveRecord __get() source
There is more work to be done to find the needed i18n record, also you could further limit the with() option to improve performance and reduce parsing on the PHP side.
But there may be different use cases how to determine the value, e.g. all translations, translation or fallback, no fallback (empty value).
Scenarios could be helpful here.
PS: I would be up for a github project!
You can try to use a simple multilingual CRUD extension.
it is very simple to use and modificate. you just need to add language field to your table.
just watch description here: http://all-of.me/yii-multilingual-crud/
it is in alpha state, but tried on a few projects. you can easily modificate it or contact author to fix or add features