Super Awesome AdvancedCakePHP Tips

This book is available for free at http://www.pseudocoder.com/free-cakephp-book

Version 1.1

By Matt Currypseudocoder.comtwitter.com/mcurry

matt@pseudocoder.com

With Contributions FromMark Story

mark-story.com twitter.com/mark_story

Super Awesome Advanced CakePHP Tips by Matt Curry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

CakePHP is a registered trademark of the Cake Software Foundation (http://cakefoundation.org)

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ContentsWho Should Read This Book..........................................................................................................................6

How to Read This Book.............................................................................................................................................6

How to Learn CakePHP..................................................................................................................................7The Paid Way.............................................................................................................................................................7

The Free Way.............................................................................................................................................................8

After youve done Either/Both Of The Above.........................................................................................................8

Models...............................................................................................................................................................9Recursion....................................................................................................................................................................9

Containable Behavior................................................................................................................................................9

Why You Should Use It.............................................................................................................................................9

This Will Catch Everyone At Least Once..............................................................................................................10

Custom Find Types........................................................................................................................................11The Unofficial Cake Way........................................................................................................................................11

My Way....................................................................................................................................................................12

Comparison..............................................................................................................................................................14

App Model................................................................................................................................................................15

Getting the Logged In User from Anywhere...............................................................................................16The User Model .......................................................................................................................................................16

In The AppController..............................................................................................................................................17

Back to the User Model...........................................................................................................................................17

Usage.........................................................................................................................................................................18

What About The Configure Class?........................................................................................................................18

Full Source...............................................................................................................................................................19

Automatically Tracking Created/Modified By............................................................................................20Database...................................................................................................................................................................20

Model Relations.......................................................................................................................................................20

Model beforeValidate Callback..............................................................................................................................20

Behavior beforeValidate Callback.........................................................................................................................20

The Full Behavior....................................................................................................................................................21

Routing............................................................................................................................................................22Case Insensitive........................................................................................................................................................22

Unit Testing....................................................................................................................................................23Views.........................................................................................................................................................................23

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Setting Up The Files..................................................................................................................................23Setting Up The Test Class.........................................................................................................................23Standard Index View.................................................................................................................................24Creating The View Test.............................................................................................................................25Testing the Rendered View.......................................................................................................................26Controllers.................................................................................................................................................28Doing Things the Hard Way......................................................................................................................28Testing A Controller Method....................................................................................................................30Making assertions......................................................................................................................................31

Mock Objects...........................................................................................................................................................33What is a Mock Object..............................................................................................................................33Where can I get one of these fabulous devices?........................................................................................33Makings expectations with Mock Objects................................................................................................34

Models......................................................................................................................................................................36Test Case...................................................................................................................................................36Fixtures......................................................................................................................................................36

Merging Add and Edit Actions.....................................................................................................................37The Controller.........................................................................................................................................................37

Telling Add And Edit Apart...................................................................................................................................38

The View...................................................................................................................................................................39

Cake Tricks from The Core..........................................................................................................................40Cake Style $options Parameter...............................................................................................................................40

Handling Data Arrays with a Single Record or an Array of Records.................................................................41

Stupid Easy URL Slugs..................................................................................................................................43Making The Slugs A Bit Smarter......................................................................................