Cakephp Best Practices

Question

I have a question about best practices in CakePHP!

Let's imagine the following situation:

In a Receipt Model i have the code:

public function beforeValidate()
    {
        $this->data[$this->name]["client_id"] = CakeSession::read("Auth.User.id");
        $this->data[$this->name]["date"] = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');

        $receipt    = $this->data[$this->name]["receipt"];
        $cod_filial     = substr($receipt, 0, 3);
        $qtdade_cupom   = substr($receipt, 12, 2);
        $tipo_pagamento = substr($receipt, 14, 1);

        $this->data[$this->name]["cod"] = $cod_filial;
        $this->data[$this->name]["quantity"] = $qtdade_cupom;
        $this->data[$this->name]["payment_type"] = $tipo_pagamento;
        $this->data[$this->name]["is_valid"] = null;


        return true;
    }

I have to do a lot of verifications with the variables $qtdade_cupom, $cod_filial like check the valid digit.

Where do I do the maths??

I create a method inside the model like

public function checkDigits()

OR

I create a Behaviour to do this?

OR

Other solution??

Answer 1

The answer is easy: Depends on what you need.

If this math is used by more than one model (not just specific to this one), use a behavior.

If it is used only by this specific model, keep it as model method inside.

If the math involves a lot of other tools and classes, it might be best to extract this math into a well testable lib in /Lib.

But as I said, depends on what exactly it is needed and used for.

Answer 2

CakePHP has model validation built in.

You can also define custom validation methods.

More Info: http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/data-validation.html#custom-validation-rules

Hope this helps.