Question

I’m using cakephp 2.1.3 and I have a table Ingredients and a table IngredientAliases
I want that in my page index in Ingredient when I select an IngredientAlias I want to see the IngredientAlias and some fileds of Ingredients
But I don’t know if I have to make two query into my controller or only to set ingredients_id the id and cakephp in automatically retrieve me the data. Now I make two query in my controller but I don’t know if it’s the best way

$this->set('ingredient', $this->Ingredient->read());            $this->set('ingredient_alias',$this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->read()); 

Here is my tables:

class Ingredient extends AppModel {
    public $name = 'Ingredient';
    public $useTable = 'ingredients';
    public $belongsTo = 'User';

    public $hasMany = array (
        'IngredientAlias' => array (
            'className'     => 'IngredientAlias',
            'foreignKey'    => 'ingredient_id'
        )
    );
}

class IngredientAlias extends AppModel {
    public $name = 'IngredientAlias';
    public $useTable = 'ingredient_aliases';
    public $belongsTo = array(
        'Ingredient' => array(
            'className'    => 'Ingredient',
            'foreignKey'   => 'ingredient_id'
        )
    );
}

And here is my IngredientsController (I have changed the routes to putt alias into my arguments and it’s working)

public function edit ($alias) {
        $ing = $this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->find('first', array(
                    'conditions' => array('IngredientAlias.alias' => $alias)));
        $this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->id= $ing['IngredientAlias']['id'];
        $this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->set('ingredient_id',$ing['IngredientAlias']['ingredient_id']);
        $this->Ingredient->id= $ing['IngredientAlias']['ingredient_id'];
        if (!$this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->exists()) {
                throw new NotFoundException ('Nessuna corrispondenza trovata per questo ingrediente');
            }
            if (!$alias) {
                $this->set('flash_element','error');
                $this->Session->setFlash ('Ingrediente non valido');
            }
            $this->Ingredient->recursive = 2;
            $this->set('ingredient', $this->Ingredient->read());
            $this->set('ingredient_alias',$this->Ingredient->IngredientAlias->read());
    }

Answer 1

Based on the relations you described and if you have a ingredient_id key in your ingredient_aliases table if you call:

$this->Ingredient->find('first', array('conditions' => array('Ingredient.id' => $id)));

You would get the Ingredient record specified by $id with all it’s associated IngredientAlias records in an array structure similar to the following:

Array =>
    [Ingredient] => Array
                        [id] => 3
                        [other_data_from_DB] =>
                        .....
    [IngredientAlias] => Array => 
                         [0] => Array =>
                                [id] => 1
                                [ingredient_id] => 3
                                [other_data_from_DB] =>
                                ....
                         [1] => Array =>
                                [id] => 2
                                [ingredient_id] => 3
                                [other_data_from_DB] =>
                                ....
                         [2] => Array =>
                                [id] => 3
                                [ingredient_id] => 3
                                [other_data_from_DB] =>
                                ....

The IngredientAlias array sub-structure is indexed because of the hasMany relation.
If you’re not seeing the associated IngredientAlias records then check your Model’s recursive property:

debug($this->Ingredient->recursive);

If it equals -1 then only the Ingredient Model data will be fetched. Check out what the other recursive values do in the link I provided.

If you want to go the other way around you should go through the IngredientAlias model:

$this->IngredientAlias->find('first', array(CONDITIONS));

will provide the specified in the CONDITIONS IngredientAlias record with it’s connected Ingredient record. The Ingredient record will be only one because of the IngredientAlias belongsTo Ingredient relation.