What does $this mean in CakePHP?

Question

I know that in Object Oriented Programming, $this refers to the current object. But in the code of the ArticlesController Class below,

public function index()
{
    $articles = $this->Articles->find('all');
    $this->set(compact('articles'));
}

'$this' seems to be referring to the class I want to use, which is the Articles class. I am very confused with what is going on. Can $this be used in this way too?

Answer 1

'$this' seems to be referring to the class I want to use, which is the Articles class. Can $this be used in this way too?

$this does not referer to the ArticlesTable class, but $this->Articles does.

Your ArticlesController class has a property called Articles which is an instance of the ArticlesTable class.

Heres an example of how it might be done

class ArticlesController
{
    private $Articles;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->Articles = new ArticlesTable();
    }

    public function index()
    {
        $articles = $this->Articles->find('all');
    }
}

class ArticlesTable
{
    public function find()
    {
        echo "find method called";
    }
}

$controller = new ArticlesController();
$controller->index();