Question

I am currently a beginner in CakePHP, and have played around with CakePHP 1.3, but recently CakePHP 2.0 has been released.

So far I like it but the only thing is being a pain is the fact that it doesn’t return Objects, rather it just returns arrays. I mean, it hardly makes sense to have to do $post[‘Post’][‘id’]. It is (in my opinion) much more practical to just do $post->id.

Now after Google I stumbled upon this link, however, this kept generating errors about indexes not being defined when using the Form class (guessing this is because it was getting the objectified version rather than the array version).

I am following the Blog tutorial (already have followed it under 1.3 but going over it again for 2.0)

So, anyone know how to achieve this without it interfering with the Form class?

Hosh

Answer 1

You could create additional object vars. This way you wouldn’t interfere with Cake’s automagic but could access data using a format like $modelNameObj->id; format.

Firstly, create an AppController.php in /app/Controller if you don’t already have one. Then create a beforeRender() function. This will look for data in Cake’s standard naming conventions, and from it create additional object vars.

<?php
App::uses('Controller', 'Controller');

class AppController extends Controller {

  public function beforeRender() {

    parent::beforeRender();

    // camelcase plural of current model
    $plural = lcfirst(Inflector::pluralize($this->modelClass));

    // create a new object
    if (!empty($this->viewVars[$plural])) {      
      $objects = Set::map($this->viewVars[$plural]);
      $this->set($plural . 'Obj', $objects);     
    }

    // camelcase singular of current model
    $singular = lcfirst(Inflector::singularize($this->modelClass));    

    // create new object 
    if (!empty($this->viewVars[$singular])) {      
      $object = Set::map($this->viewVars[$singular]);
      $this->set($singular . 'Obj', $object);
    }
  }
}

Then in your views you can access the objects like so:

index.ctp

$productsObj;

view.ctp

$productObj->id;

All we’re doing is adding ‘Obj’ to the variable names that Cake would already provide. Some example mappings:

Products -> $productsObj

ProductType -> $productTypesObj

I know this is not perfect but it would essentially achieve what you wanted and would be available across all of your models.