Question

In CakePHP’s documentation I’ve seen from version 2.2 has been added the configuration key ‘contain’ for the AuthComponent:

The core authentication objects support the following configuration keys.

[…]

contain Containable options for when the user record is loaded.

http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/components/authentication.html#configuring-authentication-handlers

But I can’ understand how it works (there is no example).

This does not work:

'Auth' => array(
    'authenticate'      => array(
        'Form' => array(
            'contain'   => array('User' => array('id', 'full_name')),
            'fields'    => array('username' => 'email'),
        )
    )
)

Neither this:

'Auth' => array(
    'authenticate'      => array(
        'Form' => array(
            'contain'   => array('id', 'full_name'),
            'fields'    => array('username' => 'email'),
        )
    )
)

Suggestions? Someone tried it?

Answer 1

Contain() is used to contain a DIFFERENT model, not the same one Auth is already retrieving (unless you’re trying to contain other User’s ie their friends or something – but then you’d likely have an alias, and not ‘User’).

So, an example would be:

'Auth' => array(
    'authenticate'      => array(
        'Form' => array(
            'contain'   => array('Post'),
            'fields'    => array('username' => 'email'),
        )
    )
)

Which would then cause Auth to retreive the user’s Posts as well when it retrieves the user’s data.