Question

So I have a self-referencing model like so.

class Category extends AppModel {
  public $order = "Category.name";
  public $belongsTo = array(
      'ParentCategory' => array(
          'className'    => 'Category',
          'foreignKey'   => 'parent_id',
          'order'        => 'ParentCategory.name'
      )
  );
}

The sql query it produces is this:

SQL Query: SELECT `ParentCategory`.`id`, `ParentCategory`.`name` FROM `cakephp`.`categories` AS `ParentCategory` WHERE 1 = 1 ORDER BY `Category`.`name` ASC

Which will not work because "Category" is not a table name here.

What am I doing wrong here. Why is it not respecting my “order” rule?

Answer 1

I found the solution to a simliar issue in the CakePHP docs:

http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/virtual-fields.html#virtual-fields-and-model-aliases

So basically, anytime you want to use Model Aliasing, it is best to define the values in the constructor like this:

  public function __construct($id = false, $table = null, $ds = null) {
      parent::__construct($id, $table, $ds);
      $this->order = $this->alias.".whatever";
  }