Ho to set a default query parameter in cakephp 3.6?

Question

I have a classical index page with a form where I can filter my records.

One of my fields is year . Let's say that I want the records to be pre-filtered by current year when the user first visit the page (ie when the query string is empty)

what have I done:

in my controller I did something like this

if(empty($this->request->query))
{
    $this->request->query['year'] =  date('Y');
}

and then with the help of friendsofcake/search plugig:

$this->MyTable->find('search', [
    'search' => $this->request->getQuery()
]);

In this way the records are filtered and the form is pre compiled with the current year since in my view I have

'valueSources' => 'query'

Now with cake 3.6 direct modification of the query is deprecated (see this issue I opened). In fact I get deprecation warnings when I try to change the query array.

My question:

So I want to know what is the best way to achieve the same behavior without getting warnings. I would also like to know if and why my approach is wrong.

Answer 1

In controller:

$searchValues = $this->request->getQueryParams() ?: ['year' => date('Y')];
$this->MyTable->find('search', [
    'search' => $searchValues
]);
$this->set(compact('searchValues'));

In template:

$this->Form->create(['schema' => [], 'defaults' => $searchValues]);

Ideally you would also set proper values in schema as shown here https://api.cakephp.org/3.6/class-Cake.View.Form.ArrayContext.html

Answer 2

Try something like this (not tested):

$this->setRequest($this->getRequest()->withQueryParams([
    'year' => date('Y'),
]);