Question

I have 2 models which are connected via a HABTM association, in the same way that Recipes and Ingredients are associated in the cookbook.

I need to do the equivalent of finding all recipes which use a particular ingredient – how do I do that?

So basically, I’ll have ingredient_id, and I want to do something like:

$this->Recipe->find('all', array('conditions' => 'recipe uses this ingredient'));

I’d also like to retrieve a list of all ingredients which are used in at least one recipe.

Answer 1

When you use HABTM (hasAndBelongsToMany) relationships in CakePHP, it creates a model by combining the names of both models in alphabetical order (reference). You can use that model to perform your query.

Example:

<?php

$recipes = $this->Recipe->IngredientsRecipe->find('all', array(
    'conditions' => array(
        'IngredientsRecipe.ingredient_id' => 1 // This could also be an array of ingredients
    ),
    'group' => array('Recipe.id')
));

In the example above, we’re using the IngredientsRecipe model which has 2 relationships, both belongsTo with Ingredient and Recipe. Just in case a Recipe has multiple ingredients that match, we’re also grouping by the recipe ID.

PS: You don’t need to define the relationship to IngredientsRecipe as long as you’ve defined the hasAndBelongsToMany relationship between Recipe and Ingredients. CakePHP will do the rest automatically.