CakePHP Multiple Model association

Question

I am confused with the CakePHP 2.x doc Model Association So need a little help over here to connect and find contains in result.

Deal Table > id | title
DealAttribute Table (has options) > id | title
DealAttributeOption Table (belongs to DealAttribute) > id | title | deal_attribute_id
DealsDealAttributes Table > id | deal_id | deal_attribute_id | option_id

Need result like

Deal [
    id, title
    DealsDealAttributes [
        id, deal_id, deal_attribute_id, option_id
        DealAttribute [
            title
        ]
        DealAttributeOption [
            title
        ]
    ]
]

I tried with $belongsTo and also with $hasAndBelongsToMany in DealsDealAttributes of all three Deal, DealAttribute, DealAttributeOption but didn't get the contains. Now i want if i find any Deal then all the associated models will comes in contains. How do i set up the Models association?

Answer 1

It looks like your model associations should be set up something like this:-

class Deal extends AppModel {

    public $belongsTo = [
        'User'
    ];

    public $hasMany = [
        'DealsDealAttribute'
    ];

}

class DealsDealAttribute extends AppModel {

    public $belongsTo = [
        'Deal',
        'DealAttribute',
        'DealAttributeOption' => [
            // Foreign key breaks naming convention so needs setting manually
            'foreignKey' => 'option_id'
        ]
    ];

}

class DealAttribute extends AppModel {

    public $belongsTo = [
        'User'
    ];

    public $hasMany = [
        'DealsDealAttribute'
    ];

}

class DealAttributeOption extends AppModel {

    public $hasMany = [
        'DealsDealAttribute'
    ];

}

You will need to set the foreign key for the DealAttributeOption association in the DealsDealAttribute model as you've broken from CakePHP's naming convention (it should ideally be deal_attribute_option_id ).

Update

Then to retrieve a deal with the associated records you can use contain to retrieve the relevant models like this:-

$result = $this->Deal->find('first', [
    'contain' => [
        'DealsDealAttribute' => [
            'DealAttribute',
            'DealAttributeOption'
        ]
    ],
    'conditions' => [
        'Deal.id' => $id
    ]
]);