Question

whenever I get a User from the database, I want to say “if this field for this user is empty…”

This is for the current user and every user that is retrieved from the database. Where would I put this if statement? Would it go in the model or is there a generic function that I can use the in the user controller before rendering any user?

Many thanks

Answer 1

You can use afterFind in your model to perform such checks, and this will work for data returned for find operation, like:

//like for User model's some field
public function afterFind($results, $primary = false) {
    foreach ($results as $key => $val) {
        if (empty($val['User']['some_field'])) {
            $results[$key]['User']['some_field'] = "Empty Field"; 
        }
    }
    return $results;
}

Note:- You can define such functions in your Model Class or AppModel as well.