Question

I want to create a binding from one model to my User model on the fly so that the JOIN is not called every time that I perform a find on that model. I am using the binding to perform a HABTM save. However, when I use the bindModel function, the HABTM data is not saved in the database.

What makes this odd is that if I move my binding to the User model, then the save works perfectly. I don’t see any indication in the documentation that the save behavior would be different when the association is made in the model versus the bindModel function (though, I may have missed it if there is any).

Here is my bindModel code in my controller:

$this->User->bindModel(
        array(
            'hasAndBelongsToMany' => array(
                'Othermodel' => array(
                    'className'              => 'Othermodel',
                    'joinTable'              => 'othermodels_users',
                    'foreignKey'             => 'user_id',
                    'associationForeignKey'  => 'othermodel_id',
                    'unique'                 => true,
                    )
                )
            )
        );

if($res = $this->User->save($data)){
    return true;
}

And this is my user model.

class User extends AppModel {
    public $name = 'User';
    public $belongsTo = array();
    public $hasOne = array();
    public $hasMany = array();

    public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
    'Othermodel' => array(
        'className'              => 'Othermodel',
        'joinTable'              => 'othermodels_users',
        'foreignKey'             => 'user_id',
        'associationForeignKey'  => 'othermodel_id',
        'unique'                 => true
    )
    );

Again, I only have the relationship active in one place at one time, so I know the problem is not with the binding itself. It seems the problem is solely related to the fact that I have tried to use bindModel. Is this the intended behavior?

Answer 1

Based on the responses in this article, it looks like the bindModel function only exists for finds.

CakePHP: Bind Model not working

Though there’s no information in the CakePHP 1.3 documentation that states that the bind is only for finds, though that would explain the behavior…

http://book.cakephp.org/1.3/en/The-Manual/Developing-with-CakePHP/Models.html

So, I am marking this as answered.