CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpcakephpmodelcontroller
Dan Hanly
Dan Hanly

Reputation: 7839

CakePHP Combining Tables into a Form

I've just began using CakePHP and I have a question. I'm creating sort of a Task Manager system.

I have a 'Tasks' table, and this table has a user_id field for assigning a task to a user.

When I baked the application, the generated form has a user_id which was automatically linked to the users table, but I want to show the user's username instead of the user_id - how would I go about doing this?

Also, I need for when the form is saved, it saves the user_id into the field and not the username - So it needs to display the username for ease of use but save the user_id.

I'm still new to this whole Model and Controller so I'm not sure how I'd manage to do this. Thanks.

Update:

Here's where I am so far. In my jobs add.ctp I have added this code to help generate the form field:

foreach ($users as $user):
    $options_array[$user['id']] = $user['username'];
endforeach;
print_r($options_array);
echo $this->Form->input('user_id', $options_array);

Unfortunately the print_r gives me:

Array ( [2] => 2 )

And not the desired output:

Array ( [2] => Dan )

$users is defined in the job_controller.php as so:

$users = $this->Job->User->find('list');
$clients = $this->Job->Client->find('list');
$stages = $this->Job->Stage->find('list');
$this->set(compact('users', 'clients', 'stages'));

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
Dan

Upvotes: 2

Views: 238

Answers (1)

stephenbayer
stephenbayer

Reputation: 12431

If you are only looking for the id and username, then using the list should be cool, but you have to specify the username field.

$users = $this->Job->User->find('list', array('fields' => array('User.username'));

That should return the array as such:

array (
  [1] => 'username_for_id_1',
  [2] => 'username_for_id_2',
  ...  all the other records...
  [114] => 'username for id_114'
)

If you need more information from the User table, then you should use the ->find('all').

$users->Job->User->find('all');
// $users is now:
// array (
//    [0] => array (
//        'User' => array(
//            'id' => 1,
//            'username' => 'username',
//             ... the rest of the fields
//         )
//        Other affiliated models will be included with the 'User' if 
//        you haven't set 'recursive' = -1
//    )
// )

Upvotes: 2

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