Question

Documentation on creating your own Components is piss-poor.

How does one read model data inside a Component?

Trying to do something as simple as trying to get $this->request->params[‘pass’][0] is making me want to kill myself. Considering Components are supposed to plug into Controllers, I’m surprised it’s as difficult as it is.

Answer 1

why are you not using the available information there is?
for instance you could look directly in the code. its open source and easy to browse via github:

https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/blob/2.3/lib/Cake/Controller/Component/PaginatorComponent.php#L226

there you would find out a lot more you could ever get from any API or documention.
for instance, that using

public function __construct(ComponentCollection $collection, $settings = array()) {
    $settings = array_merge($this->settings, (array)$settings);
    $this->Controller = $collection->getController();
    parent::__construct($collection, $settings);
}

and then

$this->Controller->... 

anywhere in your code you can access just about anything from the current controller.
just as if you were inside this controller.

so also:

$this->Controller->request->params['pass'][0]

or just

$this->Controller->request->pass[0]

PS: there are over 6 other components to learn from, besides all those test cases to it, as well.