Hello, this post will be few tips about CakePHP, about random things such as set a favicon, use the cache, use no database, …
I’ll make it evolve from time to time, feel free to give tips too in the comments 😉
- How to set a favicon in your layout?
Well that’s pretty easy, open your layout which should be in app/View/Layouts/xxx.ctp and add this line in the head markup :
<head>
<?php
echo $this->Html->meta('icon', $this->Html->url('/favicon.png'));
?>
...
<head>Of course here, the favicon is called favicon.png and is at the root of the webroot folder.
- How to use the cache? (short explanation)
- How to use CakePHP without database?
You have to create a new datasource file in app/Model/Datasource, call it for example Nosource.php, and fill it with this
<?php
class NoSource extends DataSource {
function isConnected() {
return true;
}
}Then in your database.php file in app/Config just configure the default database this way
<?php
public $default = array(
'datasource' => 'NoSource'
);This would do the trick.
- How to use a model without a table?
Just add the $useTable = false; line into your model.
<?php
App::uses('AppModel', 'Model');
class NoTableModel extends AppModel {
public $name = 'NoTableModel';
public $useTable = false;
}
- How to have coloration in Eclipse for .ctp files?
In Eclipse just go to Preference > General > Content Types > Php, and then add *.ctp, you were blind, now you see.
- How to deal quickly with erros in your application? (dirty but quick way)
Put this function in your appController, this example will catch all errors and redirect to the root of your website. It’s a pretty bad example, but it’s up to you to do whatever you want in the function (set a message, do actions, …). I used this for a small local application, it didn’t need to show errors.
<?php
public function appError($error)
{
$this->redirect('/');
}- How to get only your model data and not its associated data?
The recursive attribute allows you to set how deep you go when you get (with the methods find, read, etc … ) the data your model. For example, let’s say you have a model Post, if you want to grab only the data of the post and not the tags, the categories, etc … do as follows
<?php
$myPost = $this->Post->find('first', array('recursive' => -1));Set to -1 it only grabs the data of the model. You can also set it in your appModel directly (it’s wiser) and change its value whenever you need just like I showed before with the find method. More explanations about it there.
- How to make your own validation rule?
Probably you came to the need of some homemade validation rules. It’s kinda easy to do. Let’s say you have a Post model, so it’s in App/Model/Post.php, in there just write down the following code.
<?php
public function notEqualTo($field, $forbidden)
{
if($field['title'] === $forbidden))
{
return false;
}
return true;
}This method is really quite easy and just forbids to use a value. So we just created a new validation rule, called notEqualtTo. Its first parameter is the value of the field on which you’ll put the validation rule, the second is a parameter we set here for a forbidden value, it can be whatever you need/want. Stick in your Post model, and in the $validate, just add this.
<?php
public $validate = array(
'title' => array(
'rule1' => array(
'rule' => array("notEqualTo", "my awesome title"),
'message' => 'This title is forbidden.'
),
.....
),
);So here we just said that we want the rule notEqualTo applied on our title field, as a second parameter we gave the string “my awesome title”, which means that when you’ll try to validate, if your title is “my awesome title”, the validation will fail. It’s now up to you to do more itneresting validation rules.
P.S : you can also define your validation rules in the AppModel, it means that you could use them in all your models.
- How to get rid of CakePHP’s default routes?
Other easy thing, open the app/Config/routes.php file and comment or erase this line (should be at the bottom of the file)
<?php // require CAKE . 'Config' . DS . 'routes.php';
Don’t forget to define your routes else this won’t work well.
- How to debug?
Two interesting methods :
– Debugger::log($this->request->data); which saves into a file in /app/tmp/logs/debug.txt
– debug($this->request->data); which displays its result directly (it’s an “upgraded” var_dump)
The documentation is quite good, so have a look at it there.
- How to override validation message?
Let’s say you have a custom validation rule on a field in your $validate. But your validation function can return different kind of errors according to what went wrong? The important word was return. To do so you just have to return the error message from your validation function if it failed and true if it went well. Example !
// your validation rules
public $validate = array(
'name' => array(
'rule1' => array(
'rule' => array('myIsValid'),
'message' => 'My useless message.'
),
);
// the homemade validation
public function myIsValid($field)
{
$return = true;
if($field['name'] != 'bla')
{
$return = 'wooops ! it should be equal to bla !';
}
else if(other stupid condition)
{
...
}
return $return;
}
The point here was to show that you can return a string has the error message, it will be in the validationErrors. Enjoy !