Cakephp 2.3: How to not use 'id' as the label of $belongsTo <select> options

Question

I run into this dilemma a lot with Cakephp, and I\'m prettty sure it\'s a consequence of my not following/understanding a convention somewhere. In any kind of belongsT

Answer 1

For single column tables, a simple $displayField = 'column_name' is the answer.

But for concatenations of columns, there's a bit more code involved:

public $virtualFields = array("full_name"=>"CONCAT(first_name, ' ' ,last_name)");
public $displayField = 'full_name';

If its a really complicated $displayField, an afterFind solution may be necessary, but for most cases this is the solution.

Hope that helps.