Question

I have built a simple Notification system in my Cake app that I want to have a function that will create a new notification when I call a certain method. Because this is not something the user would actually access directly and is only database logic I have put it in the Notification model like so:

class Notification extends AppModel
{
    public $name = 'Notification';

    public function createNotification($userId, $content, $url)
    {
        $this->create();

        $this->request->data['Notification']['user_id'] = $userId;
        $this->request->data['Notification']['content'] = $content;
        $this->request->data['Notification']['url'] = $url;

        $result = $this->save($this->request->data);

        if ($result)
        {
            $this->saveField('datetime', date('Y-m-d H:i:s'));
            $this->saveField('status', 0);
        }
    }
}

And then whenever I want to create a notification within my app I just do:

$this->Notification->createNotification($userId,'Test','Test');

However this doesn’t work! The controller is talking to the model fine, but it doesn’t create the row in the database… I’m not sure why… but it would seem I’m doing this wrong by just doing all the code in the model and then calling it across the app.

Edit: Based on answers and comments below, I have tried the following the code to create a protected method in my notifications controller:

protected function _createNotification($userId, $content, $url)
    {
        $this->Notification->create();

        $this->request->data['Notification']['user_id'] = $userId;
        $this->request->data['Notification']['content'] = $content;
        $this->request->data['Notification']['url'] = $url;

        $result = $this->save($this->request->data);

        if ($result)
        {
            $this->saveField('datetime', date('Y-m-d H:i:s'));
            $this->saveField('status', 0);
        }
    }

Now the thing that is stumping me still (apologies if this is quite simple to others, but I have not used protected methods in CakePHP before) is how do I then call this from another controller? So for example If have a method in my PostsController and want to create a notification on successful save, how would I do this?

I thought about in my PostsController add method:

if($this->save($this->request-data){

    $this->Notification->_createNotification($userId,'Test','Test');

}

But being protected I wouldn’t be able to access the method from outside of the NotificationsController. Also I’m using the same syntax as if I was calling a function from a model so again it doesn’t feel right.

Hopefully someone can help me out and get me back on track as this is a new area to me.

Answer 1

Methods in a model are not “publicly accessible” by definition. A user cannot call or invoke a method in a model. A user can only cause a controller action to be initiated, never anything in the model. If you don’t call your model method from any controller, it’s never going to be invoked. So forget about the “non-public” part of the question.

Your problem is that you’re working in the model as if you were in a controller. There is no request object in a model. You just pass a data array into the model method and save that array. No need for $this->request. Just make a regular array(), put the data that was passed by the controller in there and save it.