Question

I have a table called categories. The table holds categories and their sub(subsub)categories…

Its an easy table:

• id
• parent_id
• title

This way I can make categories with endless depth… I kinda hoped that cakephp would understand parent_id (I also tried category_id, but that makes cakePHP join on itself 😀 )

What is the right way to tackle this?

NOTE: There is also a ‘many to many’ table called places. Those places can belong to one or more categories.

Answer 1

Tree behaviour is overkill for this situation. You just need to set your model up like this:

class Category extends AppModel {

  public $hasMany = array(
    'Children'=>array(
       'className'=>'Category',
       'foreignKey'=>'parent_id'
    )
  );

  public $belongsTo = array(
    'Parent'=>array(
       'className'=>'Category',
       'foreignKey'=>'parent_id'
    )
  );

}

Now, when you do a find() on Category, you’ll get two additional Models called Parent (which points to the parent id) and Children (which lists it’s children).