Question

I am not sure what is the correct title. Here is my problem:

There are several models such as:
Company
Person (not same as the Users)
User
etc.

Some of them needs to have one or more files attached to them.

So I have created an UploadedFile model. How to link this to any of the above models?
Sometimes the UploadedFile belongs to a Company.
Sometimes the UploadedFile belongs to Person

If an UploadedFile belongs to a Company, then it doesn’t belong to others like Person.

All UploadedFile belongs to User (because they upload them and I need to track who uploaded it)

Does HABTM works here? Any other better ways?

Thank you very much for help.

Best regards,
Tony.

Answer 1

Make the UploadedFile belog to all three (User, Company and Person):

var $belongsTo = array(
    'User' => array('className' => 'User','foreignKey' => 'user_id'),
    'Company' => array('className' => 'Company','foreignKey' => 'company_id'),
    'Person' => array('className' => 'Person','foreignKey' => 'person_id'));

Since it always belong to a User, the user_id will always have a value.

Then you will check whether the company_id is set or the person_id is set and determine to which of them the file belongs. I have an application that works just like this. It is a bit painstaking, but I could not find any other solution

Another good idea will be to try and combine Person and Company in a single table, and just have a flag to distinguish between the two.