Oct 23, 2008
my workaround: Cakephp model associations not in primary keys
I was just asked by another filipino cakephp developer about how to make model associations but the associations are not in primary keys. I already had been into this situation before, but I didn’t pursue a work around because, I felt it was not following good convention with regards to cakephp.
Well anyway, his db structure is like this. He has employees table , and belongs to Departments Table. But he said that an employee record has a department code. Meaning, to relate employees to departments, you must use a code. not an id, or a primary key.
I was a bit challenged. but it was easy to make a solution.
In short, I did this:
{code type=php}
var $belongsTo = array(
“Departments”=>array(
“className”=>”Departments”,
“foreignKey”=>”",
“conditions”=>”Employees.Deparment_code=Department.code”
)
);
{/code}
it works, wow!
another way is to set the primary key of the associated table.
ex:
$this->Employee->Department->primaryKey = ‘code’;
$this->Employee->findById($x);
watch for the generated SQL query.
to understand more of it.
@ajmacaro,
I couldn’t make your code work on me.
Did you test it on your code?
Thanks for the help jobert! helped me a lot!!
Yes, i use it alot in project.
just watch for generated query.
maybe
$x = $this->Employee->primary = ‘department_code’;
$this->Department->findById($x);
anyway, the idea was there, have fun exploring it.
please edit the code.
$this->Employee->primary = ‘department_code’;
$this->Department->findById($x);