CakePHP：hasMany与联接表

Question

I have two models: Store and Review . Users of my site can leave a review on a store. In my database, I have a join table, reviews_stores that associates a review with a store.

How do I link my models? I assume a Store should haveMany Review , and a Review should belong to a Store , but the join table is causing issues with CakePHP as CakePHP is assuming my reviews table has a column called store_id .

The reason I'm using a join table is because many parts of my site can be reviewed. For example, brands. A new Review record will be created and a record will be inserted into a brands_reviews table to associate the two records.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Why are you not simply using one Review model and a reviews table with a field "foreign_key" and another field "model"? By this you do not need to duplicate tables and inherit or duplicate models. This will also remove the need for a join table.

If you want to continue to use your db design then you'll have to use a HABTM association over the hasMany association. But even in the case you want to keep that jointable, again, you can use the foreign_key/model and simply have one join table and one reviews table.

By the way, your join table review_store does not follow the conventions, it should be reviews_stores. But then it differs to the schema you've used for brands_reviews. ;)

Answer 2

Seems to me it isn't a many-many relationship but a grouped 1-many relationship. Id lose the join tables and simply have an extra table outlining which 'group' the review belongs to. So the review table would have review_id, link_id(the foreign key for the relevant brand or store), review_type_id(foreign key depicting whether the review is for a brand or store and so on). Then the review_type table only needs to have review_type_id, review_type(varchar).

Answer 3

There's no need for all the join tables for each model you can review, simple store the model name itself in a field in the Review table.

Setup your relationship like so:

class Store extends AppModel {
    public $hasMany = array(
        'Review' => array('conditions' => array('Review.model' => 'Store')
     );
}

You can then do this with as many extra models as you like without having to touch the database.