Cakephp retrieving HABTM which Conditions - cakephp

Question

I'm using cakephp and would like to display all Submissions which are part of Category 'X'
I have 4 tables with a HABTM relationship.
Users -> (haveMany) -> Submissions <-> (hasAndBelongsToMany) <-> Categories
but I would like to do so using the $this->paginate() and for each submission I would like to display the user who posted the submission.
User Table
Id | Name
-----+-------------------
1 | User 1
2 | User 2
Submission Table
Id | Name | User_id
-----+-------------------+--------------
1 | Submission 1 | 1
2 | Submission 2 | 2
Category Table
Id | Name
-----+-------------------
1 | Category 1
2 | Category 2
SubmissionCategory Table
Id | Submission_id | Category_id
-----+-------------------+-------------------
1 | 1 | 1
2 | 1 | 2
3 | 2 | 1
I am having really trouble creating a paginate which can do this, I'm starting to think its not possible unless I'm missing something.
If I was not using cakephp this is the query I would want to do
SELECT
*
FROM
submissions_categories,
submissions,
users
WHERE
submissions_categories.category_id = 8
AND
submissions_categories.submission_id = submissions.id
AND
submissions.user_id = users.id

Answer 1

HABTM relationships are very unwieldy in CakePHP I find. You are going to need to set up the joins manually using the $paginate variable. Then you can pass in the optional conditions array to the paginate() function. Example:
<?php
class SubmissionsController extends AppController {
var $name = 'Submissions';
var $helpers = array('Html', 'Form');
var $paginate = array('joins' => array(
array(
'table' => 'submissions_categories',
'alias' => 'SubmissionsCategory',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array('SubmissionsCategory.submission_id = Submission.id')
),
array(
'table' => 'categories',
'alias' => 'Category',
'type' => 'inner',
'conditions'=> array(
'Category.id = SubmissionsCategory.category_id'
)
)));
function index() {
$this->Submission->recursion = 1;
$this->set('submissions', $this->paginate(array('Category.id'=>1)));
}
}
?>