Question

i just started with yii, but i’m not new to php framework. however right now i’m stuck with this problem:

I’ve two Models/Databases:

Department:
http://s7.directupload.net/images/120610/alemicys.png

Employee:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/120610/hxerdm8t.png

I simply want to show the actual name of the Department in this Employee-view. So that instead of the 1 in column “Department” i would like to have “Department of Justice”.

This is what my databases look like:
http:// s1.directupload.net/images/120610/7wupindz.png

Thanks in advance!
John

Answer 1

Add this in the employee grid view’s columns attribute:

// this is in place of just 'departmentId',
array( 
    'name'=>'departmentId', // name of the foreign key attribute
    'value'=>'$data->department->name', // access the 'name' attribute of the related record through relation named 'department', the current record is represented by '$data'
    'type'=>'raw' // data is of raw type
),

Read up on CDataColumn to know how to modify the above array.

Note: Since you only asked for display, the above code will work, if you want the filter for this column to work, you’ll have to either

1. modify the search function of the employee model(or wherever you are doing the search) to map the input string to a departmentId or
2. write some javascript to send the related department’s id to the search, instead of a string.

Right now the filter will only work with departmentId(i.e integer) not name(string).

You can also do this instead of the code above:

//again in place of departmentId
'department.name' // using the 'department' relation, accessing its 'name'

But then to get the filter will be tough(you’ll have to use an array again), and the column header will also become the attributeLabel of Department model’s name attribute. Header can be changed by using the format : 'name:type:header' , so you can do: 'department.name:Department'

Most of these details are available in the documentation links i have included.