How do I send arrays between views in CakePHP - arrays

I am not sure if I formulated the question right, but still ...
I have a view that shows a flash embed and this flash take as parameter a /controller/action URL that generates a XML. I nee to send, from this view, an array to the XML generator action. How is the best way ? Is there some helper->set() method like or I have to create an specific URL to send this array to that action ?
Here goes my structure:
my_controller.php
function player() {}
player.ctp
<div id="myDiv">Here it Goes</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var so = new SWFObject('player.swf','test','50','50','8');
so.addVariable('file','/xml/generate'); // need to pass an array here
so.write('myDiv');
</script>
xml_controller.php
public function generate() {
// I need to read an array here
}
generate.ctp
echo "<xml><data>" . $array['contents'] . "</data>";

If the array is small enough, serialize then urlencode it and add it as a paramter to the url to your generate action:
player.ctp
so.addVariable('file','/xml/generate/<?php echo urlencode(serialize($array)); ?>');
then read it back:
public function generate($array) {
$array = unserialize($array);
}

Save the array in the session then in the next request to the XML generator action, read it back from the session.
my_controller.php
function player() {
$this->Session->write('key', $array);
}
xml_controller.php
public function generate() {
$array = $this->Session->read('key');
}
However, I have heard of some problems where flash sometimes doesn't send session cookies, in which case, append the session id to the url of the action:
so.addVariable('file','/xml/generate/<?php echo $session->id(); ?>');
and to get the session back:
public function generate($sessionId) {
CakeSession::id($sessionId);
$array = $this->Session->read('key');
}

First of all you cannot send data from one view to another in the manner you are speaking. Each of those calls would be a separate request and this means that it goes out of the framework and then in again. This means that the framework will be built and tear down between calls, making impossible to pass the data between views.
Now in regards to the array that has to be sent to your action, I'm utterly confused. I don't think you are looking at the problem the right way. If that action needs an array of data and then produce XML so the Flash Object can get it, then it makes even less sense. Are you sure that the Flash Object isn't the one responsible to sending that array of data to the Param you mentioned?
Well, even if all you are saying has to be done quite like that, I'll suggest you drop that array on the file system and then pick it up when the action is called by the Flash.
Or another suggestion would be to use AJAX to send that array to the action.
Both suggestions imply my utter "cluelessness" on your predicate.
I still have to ask, isn't the Flash Object gonna do something in all this?

You can send an array with data from a view to a controller in CakePHP like this.
To the link you can pass arguments:
www.site.com/model/action/param1:foo/param2:test
You can then retrieve them in the controller action in the following way:
$yourarray = $this->params['named'];
Of course the array shouldn't be too large then.

Related

Defining relationships and processing data within them

I have got myself a bit confused with relationships, I am not sure if I am splitting things up too much? I am dealing with a reporting system where there can be different types of reports. So, I have my standard reports table and model, and within the model, I define that a report can have one report type.
public function reportType() {
return $this->hasOne('App\ReportType');
}
Now a reportType can be one of three different Types, lets call them A, B and C. Each reportType collects different data. As such, within the ReportType model, I define a has one relationship with the type it has
public function reportTypeA() {
return $this->hasOne('App\ReportTypeA');
}
So the above states that a reportType can have one reportTypeA. I also have in this Model that it can have one reportTypeB and C. Now within reportTypeA model, I state that reportTypeA can have one set of reportTypeAData
public function reportTypeAData() {
return $this->hasOne('App\ReportTypeAData');
}
I have the inverse relationships in all Models. So essentially, I have
Report->ReportType->ReportTypeA->ReportTypeAData
ReportTypeB->ReportTypeBData
ReportTypeBData2
ReportTypeC->ReportTypeCData
Reason I have the data models is because some reports have more than one set of data. So the above shows that Report B has 2 sets of data, each with its own structure.
So the above works, but it seems very "waterfall" approach to me. I will clean this up at some point to hopefully make it more structured.
This is where I am confused though, with the above approach, how can I get the data for a Report? So in my controller, I have something like
$report = Report::where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();
This will get me the first report for the logged in User. I can then get the report data doing something like this
$reportData = $report->reportType->reportTypeA->reportTypeAData->all()->toArray();
Which seems proper overkill having to go through all relationships. My main problem is this, I want to chunk the data back to the frontend, so I will have something like this
DB::table("report_type_a_data")->chunk(100, function ($data) use ($handle) {
foreach ($data as $row) {
// Add a new row with data
fputcsv($handle, [
$row->id,
$row->name
]);
}
});
Now obviously that will loop all data, where I only want the data for the report I am dealing with. Additionally, when I try this, I get an error
You must specify an orderBy clause when using this function
Why am I getting this? Any help with organising things better and how I can process a specific reports data is highly appreciated.
Thanks
You need orderBy() when you use chunk().
For example.
DB::table('users')->orderBy('id')->chunk(100, function ($users) {
foreach ($users as $user) {
//
}
});
or you can use chunkById().
DB::table('users')->where('active', false)
->chunkById(100, function ($users) {
foreach ($users as $user) {
//
}
});
Please refer to the document

Difference in accessing variables in views

I've two controllers one is "Upload" which deals with images uploads and other is "Page" whid deals with the creation of pages of CMS now if in my "Upload" controller I load both the models i.e 'image_m' which deals with image upload and "page_m" which deals with the pages creation I've highlighted the relevant code my problem is if I access the variables in the view
$this->data['images'] = $this->image_m->get(); sent by this I can access in foreach loop as "$images->image_title, $images->image_path" etc
But the variable sent by this line ***$this->data['get_with_images'] = $this->page_m->get_no_parents();*** as $get_with_images->page_name, $get_with_images->page_id etc produces given error
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Notice
Message: Trying to get property of non-object
Filename: upload/index.php
Line Number: 20
what is the difference between these two access levels one for $image & other for $get_with_images because I can only access its values as $get_with_images
class Upload extends Admin_Controller {
public function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
***$this->load->model('image_m');
$this->load->model('page_m');***
}
public function index($id = NULL) {
//var_dump($this->data['images'] = $this->image_m->get_with_images());
//$this->data['images'] = $this->image_m->get_with_images();
***$this->data['images'] = $this->image_m->get();***
$this->data['subview'] = 'admin/upload/index';
if ($id) {
$this->data['image'] = $this->image_m->get($id);
count($this->data['image']) || $this->data['errors'][] = 'Page Could not be found';
}
$id == NULL || $this->data['image'] = $this->image_m->get($id);
/*this calls the page_m model function to load all the pages from pages table*/
***$this->data['get_with_images'] = $this->page_m->get_no_parents();***
You are not posting all your code so its hard to tell but is it because you used $this-> in the controller, but you haven't done the same thing in the view?
In this case i would recommend not using $this-> because its not necessary. Also its much better to check for errors etc when you call the model so do something like
if ( ! $data['images'] = $this->image_m->get($id) ) {
// Failure -- show an appropriate view for not getting any images
// am showing $data in case you have other values that are getting passed
$this->load->view( 'sadview', $data ); }
else {
// Success -- show a view to display images
$this->load->view( 'awesomeview', $data ); }
so we are saying if nothing came back - the ! is a negative - then show the failure view. Else $data['images'] came back, and it will be passed to the view. note i have not had to use $this-> for anything and it won't be needed in the view.
Would also suggest using separate methods - have one method to show all images and a separate method like returnimage($id) to show an image based on a specific validated $id.
====== Edit
You can access as many models as you want and pass that data to the View. You have a different issue - the problem is that you are waiting until the View to find out - and then it makes it more difficult to figure out what is wrong.
Look at this page and make sure you understand the differences between query results
http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/database/results.html
When you have problems like this the first thing to do is make a simple view, and echo out directly from the model method that is giving you problems. Its probably something very simple but you are having to look through so much code that its difficult to discover.
The next thing is that for every method you write, you need to ask yourself 'what if it doesn't return anything?' and then deal with those conditions as part of your code. Always validate any input coming in to your methods (even links) and always have fallbacks for any method connecting to a database.
On your view do a var_dump($get_with_images) The error being given is that you are trying to use/access $get_with_images as an object but it is not an object.
or better yet on your controller do a
echo '<pre>';
var_dump($this->page_m->get_no_parents());
exit();
maybe your model is not returning anything or is returning something but the data is not an object , maybe an array of object that you still need to loop through in some cases.

grails: show list of elements from database in gsp

in my grails app I need to get some data from database and show it in a gsp page.
I know that I need to get data from controller, for example
List<Event> todayEvents = Event.findAllByStartTime(today)
gets all Event with date today
Now, how can I render it in a gsp page?How can I pass that list of Event objects to gsp?
Thanks a lot
You can learn many of the basic concepts using Grails scaffolding. Create a new project with a domain and issue command generate-all com.sample.MyDomain it will generate you a controller and a view.
To answer your question create a action in a controller like this:
class EventController {
//Helpful when controller actions are exposed as REST service.
static allowedMethods = [save: "POST", update: "POST", delete: "POST"]
def showEvents() {
List<Event> todayEvents = Event.findAllByStartTime(today)
[eventsList:todayEvents]
}
}
On your GSP you can loop through the list and print them as you wish
<g:each in="${eventsList}" var="p">
<li>${p}</li>
</g:each>
Good luck
I am not sure if this is really what you meant, because in that case I suggest you to read some more on the grails :), but anyway, for your case you can use render, redirect as well but here I am taking simplest way:
In your controller you have:
def getAllElements(){
List<Event> todayEvents = Event.findAllByStartTime(today)
[todayEvents :todayEvents ]
}
and then in the GSP(I assume you know about grails conventions, as if you don't specify view name, it will by default render gsp page with the same name as the function in the controller, inside views/):
<g:each in="${todayEvents}" var="eventInstance">
${eventInstance.<propertyName>}
</g:each>
something like this.

Backbone - fetched model, set an attribute(modify), then save model, it should update but sending POST request

I created my web site having 2 types of users: admin and user. So, I created 3 pages mainpag.html, admin.html, user.html. and separate models, views, collections, routers.js files for each of them. After logging in, as I am sending users to separate HTML pages with different models, I can't automatically get user model. so I did like this:
First, I made AJAX call to server, asking for the _id (username in session, so I can get id)
from the id, I fetched the model, by model.fetch(), then I got my usermodel with all attributes.
then in the success callback of fetch, I did model.save({weight: "somevalue"}). According to me, it should update right, as the model is already available, that attribute weight also available with some old value, but it is sending POST request, also when I tried model.isNew(), it returned true. Where am I wrong? how can I update my model? I will post more details if required.
More details:
If I remove that save method, then I am getting correct attributes in the model.
If I don't remove that save method, that success and error callbacks are also appearing as attributes in the model.
Code:
addWeight : (e)->
arr=new Array()
arr['_id']=app._id
console.log "asdasd"
console.log arr
console.log arr['_id']
#user_model =new UserModel(arr)
#user_model.fetch({
success : (model,res,options) =>
console.log model
console.log res
arr=new Array()
arr['_id']=e.target.id
#arr['action']='weight' #means , update weight
##user_model.setArr(arr)
##user_model.set({weight : arr['_id']})
console.log "new : "+#user_model.isNew()
#user_model.save({weight : e.target.id})
##user_model.save({
# success : (model,res,options) =>
# console.log "model updated: "+JSON.stringify(model)
# console.log "Res : "+JSON.stringify(res)
# error : (model,res,options) =>
# console.log "Error : "+JSON.stringify(res)
#})
error : (model,res,options) =>
console.log "Error "
})
the above code is written in coffeescript, so even if you don't know coffeescript, don't worry, you can understand easily, and those # mean, it is a comment. here we follow indentation instead of braces.
one more doubt, a model's URL must be changed dynamically according to the requirement, right? what is the best way to achieve that? I am doing like this:
I am populating "array" containing the required fields that should be present in the URL. In model, s init func, I am using #arr=arr, then in URLs function, I check like this.
url : ->
if #arr['id']
"/user/#{#id}"
Is my approach right, or any better approach is there for dynamically setting URLs. Or can I directly set the URLs like this:
#user_model.setUrl "/someurl/someid" //this setUrl method is available in model's definition
#user_model.fetch() or save() or watever that needs url
Just a hunch, but you mentioned that you call model.fetch() to retrieve the _id field. Be sure to either return an id field instead _id (notice the underscore).
The call to model.isNew() returning true is an indicator that the id property was never set from the model.fetch() call.
I look forward to a possible further explanation with your code...
Looking at your code:
/* The model needs an 'id' attribute in order to marked as not new */
#user_model = new UserModel(id: arr['_id'])
Actually if you call
model.set({weight: "somevalue"});
It will update the value in the model, but it won't send a POST request
model.save(attribute);
Actually calls Backbone.sync as you probably know.
EDIT :
You might want ot set
m = Backbone.Model.extend({
idAttribute: '_id'
});
to every model, because the isNew method actually checks if the model has id attribute
Regarding to this you could see here that .set doesn't call backbone.sync here : http://jsfiddle.net/5M9HH/1/

CakePHP user session not updating but database yes

I'm developing with cakePhP and I have the following problem:
When a user logs in with his name and password to the account system that I've created, he can save items (images) as favorites. This is saved in a text field into the database. What is saved is the image ID.
The saving process works perfectly, the user clicks on the images and they're added to that field (it actually saves all the IDs as a text array that I process later).
The problem comes when removing images. When the user does it (I'll post the code below), the images is removed correctly from the database (I go to PHP MyAdmin and I see it). This means that the array that holds the favorite images IDs is updated instantly. However, when I reload that array from the website, it hasn't been updated. It's like it's stored in the caché or something. Then, if the user logs out and logs in again, then he can see the correct one. The thing is that I have other things in my website that work in a similar way and they all get updated instantly, so I can't see why this doesn't.
This is the code that I use to remove the ID from the database:
function remove_favorite($pictureID) {
$this->User->id = $this->Auth->User('id'); //We get the ID of the current user
$favoritesArray = $this->User->deleteFavoritePicture($this->User->id, $pictureID); //This function retrieves the array (string) of pictures from the user's table, and deletes all the images with the ID passed as parameter, returning the updated array (string)
$fields = array('images_favorites' => $favoritesArray, 'modified' => true); //We indicate the field that we're going to update in the users table
//We save the new string that doesn't contain the deleted image anymore
if($this->User->save($fields, false, array('images_favorites'))) {
$this->Session->setFlash(__('The image has been removed from your favorites', true));
} else {
$this->Session->setFlash(__('Error removing image from favorites, please try again', true));
}
$this->redirect(array('action' => 'manage_favorites',$this->User->id));
}
This is how the deleteFavoritePicture function looks like:
function deleteFavoritePicture($userID, $pictureID) {
$userInfo = $this->find("id = $userID");
$favoritePicturesString = $userInfo['User']['images_favorites'];
$favoritePicturesArray = explode(",", $favoritePicturesString); //Array
$i = 0;
while ($i < count($favoritePicturesArray)) {
//We remove from the array the images which ID is the one we receive to delete
if ($favoritePicturesArray[$i] == $pictureID) unset($favoritePicturesArray[$i]);
$i++;
}
$favoritePicturesString = implode(",", $favoritePicturesArray); //String
return ($favoritePicturesString);
}
That's it. Does anyone now what can be going on? Thanks so much in advance for any clue!
EDIT
Ok, I think I found something that may give a clue of what's going on here:
This is the code for the manage_favorites action:
function manage_favorites($id) {
//$user = $this->User->find("id = $id");
$user = $this->Auth->user();
$this->set('user', $user);
}
That is the action that is called for the page when a user wants to modify his favorites. The same action is called once the user removes a favorite. Here's the thing:
If I use the $id parameter in the manage_favorites function and the $user = $this->User->find("id = $id"); line (the one quoted now), then the problem does not exist! This is how I used to have it. HOWEVER, I had to change it because it was a big security flaw, since the user id ($id) was a visible parameter who anyone could change, and then access other users accounts. What I did was changing the way I obtain the user array of favorite images, using the following line: $user = $this->Auth->user();. This is how I have it now (well, and also without the $id parameter in the function header), so the user information (including the favorites array) comes from the Auth component, instead directly from the database.
So, the problem is clear: when the user deletes a favorite, it's doing it on the array in the database. WHen I show the result of that operation, the array I'm retrieving is not the one in the DB, it's the one in the session. That's why it's not showing the changes.
How can I avoid this without using a non-secure method like the one I had before?
When you save, the array passed to the save method of the model should look like this:
[User] => array(
[field] => value,
[field2] => value2,
...
)
In your example, you clearly haven't added the [User] key.
Also, is your modified field actually the default Cake modified field? That is, the DATETIME field which changes to the current time when the row is updated?
Lastly, maybe you have debugging set to 2 in config.php. try changing this to 0 (as in production) and see if caching persists.
Hope some of the points I have mentioned above will solve your problem. Please let me know!
There could be two things wrong with this.
What does your deleteFavoritePicture method look like? There could be something being done wrong there.
You're passing false as the second parameter to the User::save method, which means that you don't want to validate. Unless there is a SQL error, then this will return true even if it doesn't validate properly, I believe. Try changing this false to true and see if your results differ.

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