Question

How do you perform a joins in CakePHP like for example the one below for MySQL?

SELECT *
FROM yarns y
JOIN yarn_brands yb
JOIN contents ct
WHERE y.id = ct.yarn_id
AND yb.id = y.yarn_brand_id
AND ct.material_id = 2

I have tried to search around for the answer but i dont find anything that works.
I found something about “contain”, i have tried this but i get the result that the query it produces doesent include a join of the table requested to join in.

$this->Message->find('all', array(
    'contain' => array('User')
    'conditions' => array(
        'Message.to' => 4
    ),
    'order' => 'Message.datetime DESC'
));

Answer 1

This is the join i ended up with:

            $options['contain'] = '';
            $options['joins'][0]['table'] = 'contents';
            $options['joins'][0]['alias'] = 'cont';
            $options['joins'][0]['conditions'] = 'Yarn.id = cont.yarn_id';
            $options['joins'][1]['table'] = 'yarn_brands';
            $options['joins'][1]['alias'] = 'yb';
            $options['joins'][1]['conditions'] = 'yb.id = Yarn.yarn_brand_id';
            $options['fields'] = array('Yarn.name');
            $options['conditions']['cont.material_id'] = $this->request->data['Yarn']['material_id'];
            $options['conditions']['Yarn.yarn_brand_id'] = $this->request->data['Yarn']['yarn_brand_id'];