cakePHP paginate with post data without sessions, serialization or post to get

Question

I have created a small search and filter form with a POST action in controller/index, which POSTs to itself the conditions and fields to paginate ($this->paginate($

Answer 1

You can also use the Post/Redirect/Get design pattern pattern to solve this, allowing users to bookmark URLs of searches (without them expiring as a session would) and keeping URLs looking friendly. For example:

function index($searchTerms = null) {
    // post/redirect/get
    if (isset($this->data['SearchForm'])) {
        $this->redirect(array($this->data['SearchForm']['search_terms']));
    }
    // your normal code here.
}

The search form data POSTs to /controller/action but the user is redirected and instead GETs /controller/action/search+terms where the terms are passed into the action as a parameter (ie. $searchTerms).

If you simply change the form submission method to GET you will instead see something like: /controller/action?data[SearchForm][search_terms]=search+terms