如何从CakePHP 3结果对象中获取第一项

Question

TLDR: How do I use the first item in a results object?

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After getting data from the database, I want to pull the first one out and use it separately before repeating through the remaining videos. (All in my template/view file). If it were an array, I could use something like array_shift , but so far with the object, I'm coming up empty.

First, I get the data in my Controller, and pass it to the View:

$videos = $this->Videos->find();
$this->set(compact('videos'));

Then, in the View (template file), I've tried this:

$featuredVideo = $videos{0};

Error Cannot use object of type Cake\\ORM\\Query as array

And this:

$featuredVideo = $videos->0;

Error: syntax error, unexpected '0' (T_LNUMBER), expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or '{' or '$'

And this:

$featuredVideo = $videos->toArray()[0];

This works (kind of), but then I have to use $featuredVideo as an Array, which is different to everywhere else, and seems non-elegant.

And this:

$featuredVideo = $videos->first();

This is awesome, but it limits the entire object to only the first, so I no longer have the rest of the videos.

And this:

$allVideos = $videos;
$featuredVideo = $videos->first();

But, apparently since it's an object, the $allVideos is just a reference to the $videos , because they both get reduced to the first video.

I realize this seems like a simple question, and it's likely a simple answer, but I have looked around, and tried the suggestions on how to get the first item from an object with the above results.

Answer 1

What I failed to understand was that ->find() just returns the query object until you tell it to execute via an ->all() or a ->first() or by running it through a foreach() loop.

So, I couldn't just access the first child object, since the query hadn't yet executed to show the results.

And when I was trying to do ->first() after setting the variable above it, it was actually executing the query on the query object after setting limit to 1, hence making both only have 1.

More details here .

The answer (in code):

// Controller
$videos = $this->Videos->find()->all();
$this->set(compact('videos'));

// View
$featuredVideo = $videos->first();

More details here about when query objects are lazily evaluated .

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Thanks jose_zap and marc_ for helping clarify this one for me.