Conditions in associated models using Model->find() (CakePHP)

Question

I am having some issues with CakePHP\'s find() method and conditions in \'deeper\' model associations. There are some of these around but I could not find an answer to this

Answer 1

$joins = array(
           array('table'=>'comments', 
                 'alias' => 'Comment',
                 'type'=>'inner',
                 'conditions'=> array(
                 'Comment.id = Vote.comment_id'
           )),
           array('table'=>'posts', 
                 'alias' => 'Post',
                 'type'=>'inner',
                 'conditions'=> array(
                 'Post.id = Comment.post_id'
           )),
           array('table'=>'users', 
                 'alias' => 'User',
                 'type'=>'inner',
                 'conditions'=> array(
                 'User.id = Post.user_id','User.id'=>$user_id
           ))
         );

$votes = $this->Vote->find('all',array('joins'=>$joins,'recursive'=>-1));

Answer 2

Use the Containable behavior to perform conditions on associated Models. It took me a bit to dig this up, but it works like a charm! And it uses LEFT JOINs so it will still pull in all values for the original Model.

See documentation.

Something like this should work:

$this->Vote->Behaviors->attach('Containable');
$this->Vote->find('all',array(
                            'contain'=>array(
                                'Comment'=>array(
                                    'Post'=>array(
                                        'User'=>array(
                                            'conditions'=>array(
                                                'User.id'=>1,
                                            ),
                                        ),
                                    ),
                                ),
                            ),
                        ));

And if you wanted to include the User data of the person who voted you could simply add one more item to the initial array:

$this->Vote->Behaviors->attach('Containable');
$this->Vote->find('all',array(
                            'contain'=>array(
                                'Comment'=>array(
                                    'Post'=>array(
                                        'User'=>array(
                                            'conditions'=>array(
                                                'User.id'=>1,
                                            ),
                                        ),
                                    ),
                                ),
                                'User',
                            ),
                        ));

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

This may be one of those times you need to use the query method.

SQL calls that you can't or don't want to make via other model methods (careful - there are very few circumstances this is true) can be made using the model's query() method.

$votes = $this->Vote->query('SELECT Vote.* FROM votes Vote 
    JOIN comments Comment ON (Vote.comment_id = Comment.id)
    JOIN posts Post ON (Comment.post_id = Post.id)
    JOIN users User ON (Post.user_id = User.id)
    WHERE User.id = 1');

This should return an array of Vote entries like the find method would.

foreach ($votes as $vote):
    echo $vote['Vote']['id'];
endforeach;

Answer 4

Rather than doing a custom SQL query, you can explicitly join the tables in order to filter by a field of an indirectly associated table. Have a look at this page to see how to join the votes and users through comments: http://book.cakephp.org/view/872/Joining-tables