cakephp paginate multiple habtm - cakephp

Question

i have multiple habtm like these :
// User model
var $hasMany = array('Post');
// Post model
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array('Category', 'Tag');
// Category model
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array('Post');
// Tag model
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array('Post');
I tried to fetch all post along with its user and tags (within a certain category), somehow if i fetch tags, the result was wrong.
$this->paginate = array
(
'Post' => array
(
'limit' => 2,
'fields' => array(
'Post.title', 'Post.content', 'Post.slug', 'Post.created',
'Tag.name',
'User.username', 'User.created', 'User.post_count', 'User.avatar_file_name'),
'joins' => array
(
array(
'table' => 'categories_posts',
'alias' => 'CategoriesPost',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('CategoriesPost.post_id = Post.id')
),
// FETCH USER
array(
'table' => 'users',
'alias' => 'User',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('Post.user_id = User.id')
),
// FETCH TAGS
array(
'table' => 'posts_tags',
'alias' => 'PostsTag',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('PostsTag.post_id = Post.id')
),
array(
'table' => 'tags',
'alias' => 'Tag',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('Tag.id = PostsTag.tag_id')
),
array(
'table' => 'categories',
'alias' => 'Category',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('Category.id = CategoriesPost.category_id', 'Category.slug' => $slug)
)
)
)
);
$posts = $this->paginate();
could anyone gimme a solution since i'm a newbie?
many thanks...

Answer 1

I've run into a similar problem, when trying to paginate a resultset using an associated model. I ended up having to manually bind my models together, run the query, and then unbind them in order to get Cake to contain the right data together. ( http://book.cakephp.org/view/86/Creating-and-Destroying-Associations-on-the-Fly )
You could also try the containable behaviour which will allow you to specify which models you want to include in your result set. Containable is core in 1.2+ ( http://book.cakephp.org/view/474/Containable ), otherwise you'll need to grab it yourself.
I'm not too sure on why you have such a gargantuan query there though. I would be more inclined to do something similar to the following.
$this->Model->recursive = 2;
$this->Model->paginate();
And let Cake get all the related data for me through my associations. Then I would adjust the return using a conditions array ( http://api.cakephp.org/class/controller#method-Controllerpaginate ) to specify the category.
Sorry it's not a defacto solution, but I'm a CakePHP amateur myself! You might find it easier to view the queries, results etc, using DebugKit, http://github.com/cakephp/debug_kit