Question

I am trying to figure out which relationship type should I use to relate the following:

We have a classroom that has a teacher and students.

Students and teacher belongsTo classroom. But what about the other way around?

Can I use the following in the Classroom model:

var $hasMany = array('Students');

var $hasOne = array('Teacher');

Thanks.

Answer 1

Depends on how you want to retrieve and/or model the data.

Assuming your Classrooms will only have one Teacher, or Teachers will only have one Classroom, you can even get away with making Classroom a field of Teacher.

But we’ll assume you want to keep it all abstracted from each other. In this case, your models would look something like this:

// classroom.php
class Classroom extends AppModel {
    var $hasMany = array( 'Student' );
    var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array( 'Teacher' );
}

// teacher.php
class Teacher extends AppModel {
    var $hasMany = array( 'Student' );
    var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array( 'Classroom' );
}

// student.php
class Student extends AppModel {
    var $belongsTo = array( 'Teacher', 'Classroom' );
}