nate, Sam D: thank you for your replies!
could be this one
http://othy.wordpress.com/2006/06/03/unbind-all-associations-except-s...
Sam D
Yes, I'm using Oth's method mainly in an effort to optimize my
applications as a last phase - to remove unnecessary DB queries. I
didn't feel it was worth mentioning. In this particular case I'm using
it to cut off the rest of the associated models in order to get a
cleaner output arrays.
Take the associations out of your UserFriend model. They're implied,
as UserFriend is already being used to join User and Friend.
Yes, they're implied, but when I remove them I'm not able to fetch
anything beyond UserFriend when issuing $this-User-UserFriend-
findAll():
Outgoing_requests: Array
(
[0] = Array
(
[FanFriend] = Array
(
[id] = 1
[fan_id] = 1
[friend_id] = 2
[requested] = 2007-11-21 16:23:50
[accepted] =
[active] = 0
)
)
[1] = Array
(
[FanFriend] = Array
(
[id] = 5
[fan_id] = 1
[friend_id] = 3
[requested] = 2007-11-26 18:13:59
[accepted] =
[active] = 0
)
)
)
I've been able to find my way through this and these are the steps
I've undertaken to achieve it:
1) As users_friends was violating the principle of alphabetically
ordered foreign keys of the join table, I've renamed the association
model to FanFriend, the corresponding DB table to `fans_friends` and
the foreign key `user_id` to `fan_id`. It still holds semantic meaning
as the user that initiates the friend request could be considered a
fan of the other user, and only after the target user accepts the
request they both become friends
2) I noticed that I've erroneously designated the foreign keys of the
HABTM association. In models/user.php foreign_key and
associationForeignKey should have their places switched.
Was:
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Friend' = array(
'className'= 'User',
'joinTable'= 'users_friends',
'foreignKey' = 'friend_id',
'associationForeignKey'= 'user_id',
'unique' = true,
'with' = 'UserFriend',
),
);
Is now:
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Friend' = array(
'className'= 'Friend',
'joinTable'= 'fans_friends',
'foreignKey' = 'fan_id',
'associationForeignKey'= 'friend_id',
'with' = 'FanFriend',
),
);
3) As can be seen in the latest version of the habtm association, not
only the foreign keys have switched places, but I've also changed the
className - it's not User anymore, but is 'Friend'. Yes, I've found
out that I'm not able to fetch associated model data beyond a model
associated via an alias, no matter what the className was. I've come
to this conclusion by setting up a minimalistic version of my scenario
- User hasAndBelongsToMany Friend (className = 'User') and User
hasMany Photo. No matter how high I set the recursive flag of the
findAll() method, I'm only getting the associated photos on the User
side of the association. The Friend side remained bare - nothing
beyond it.
So, I figured the only way to get anything beyond Friend was to
implement a model for the Friend association and bind the Photo model
to it like this:
models/friend.php:
class Friend extends AppModel {
var $name = 'Friend';
var $useTable = 'users';
var $hasMany = array(
'Photo' = array(
'className' = 'Photo',
'foreignKey'= 'user_id',
'order' = 'Photo.primary DESC, Photo.id ASC',
'dependent' = true,
),
);
}
I first tried to avoid creating a dedicated Friend model, by trying in
users_controller.php:
$this-User-FanFriend-Friend-bindModel('Photo'), but it didn't
work, so as a last resort I implemented the model.
This setup now works and here are the definitions in case they might
help someone:
models/user.php:
class User extends AppModel {
var $name = 'User';
var $hasMany = array(
'Photo' = array(
'className' = 'Photo',
'foreignKey'= 'user_id',
'order' = 'Photo.primary DESC, Photo.id ASC',
'dependent' = true,
),
);
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Friend' = array(
'className'= 'Friend',
'joinTable'= 'fans_friends',
'foreignKey' = 'fan_id',
