CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpcakephpcakephp-2.3
Sander van Leeuwen
Sander van Leeuwen

Reputation: 51

Link the same model twice to another model in CakePhp

It's probably a very basic problem, but I can't wrap my head around it how to solve this properly.

In my application, I've got users who have multiple addresses with different purposes. For example, a user can have an Address and an InvoiceAddress. I want to store both addresses in the same table (the Address model) and then assign them to one User.

The respective models look something like:

Address:

 public $belongsTo = array(
    'Address' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
    ),
    'InvoiceAddress' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
    ),
);

And the User:

public $hasOne = array(
    'Address' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
    ),
    'InvoiceAddress' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
    ),
);

When a user would have one address, I'd add a user_id as foreign key to the Address model and be done with it. But obviously, something has to be done differently for CakePhp to be able to distinguish between the address and the invoice address.

In my mind the solution is something like adding a address_id and invoice_address_id to the User table, but I can't seem to get it working in any way.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 743

Answers (1)

gmponos
gmponos

Reputation: 2277

If you want to add in your user table the related fields then it is better to add them in the following form address_user_id and the invoice_address_user_id. Then you must have a belongsTo relation in your user model that looks like:

public $belongsTo = array(
    'Address' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
        'foreignKey' => 'address_user_id',
    ),
    'InvoiceAddress' => array(
        'className' => 'Address',
        'foreignKey' => 'invoice_address_user_id',
    ),
);

So when you execute the following command $this->User->find('all'); the result will be

$result = array(0 => 
                array('User' => array(...),
                      'Address' => array(...), // it will bring only one address row
                      'InvoiceAddress' => array(...) // it will bring only one address row
                ),
                1 => ...
                2 => ...
          );

Then in your address Model the relationships you must add are:

public $hasOne = array(
    'User' => array(
        'className' => 'User',
        'foreignKey' => 'address_user_id',
    ),
    'InvoiceUser' => array(
        'className' => 'User',
        'foreignKey' => 'invoice_address_user_id',
    )
);

Upvotes: 2

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