Re: Retrieving objects from the DB instead of arrays

Thanks for all of the helpful responses. It makes sense, but I feel
like I'm shooting in the dark when it comes to learning cake. I do, in
fact, have a fat controller and a thin model. I would really like to
see some simple example apps, or a tutorial that does a little more
than the blog. I guess I just have to keep trying things and asking
questions, but I don't know where one goes to learn the conventions.

Thanks,
Jason

On Mar 30, 9:54 pm, Walther <waltherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you are manipulating data in your controller then your 'doing it
> wrong'.
>
> 'GoodCake' is to have the bulk of your code in your models (Fat model,
> thin controller), the controller should almost only call the correct
> model methods (And perform things like authorisation, authentication,
> session management, etc.).
>
> You should also take a look at the new virtualFields in CakePHP 1.3.
> This allows you to easily use sql snippets as if they were real fields
> (Something like YEAR(NOW()) - YEAR(Person.birthday) as age) .
>
> If you have any queries come join the IRC channel
>
> On Mar 31, 6:31 am, Jamie <jamie....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I'm afraid that there's no satisfying answer for you. Cake doesn't map
> > DB records to objects; arrays are all you're gonna get. If you want
> > your data in objects instead of arrays, then you'll have to rework a
> > substantial part of the Cake core. You're stuck with arrays unless you
> > want to do some serious, serious work. ;)
>
> > As Andy mentioned, you can use Model callbacks - especially afterFind
> > - to format your data. You can also write helpers to accomplish a lot
> > of the dirty work. So, instead of $person->getAge(), you might have
> > $formatter->getAge($person['Person']['birthday']) where "$formatter"
> > is FormatterHelper and getAge() is a function that takes a date and
> > converts it to an age. For helpers:
>
> >http://book.cakephp.org/view/1095/Helpers
>
> > Hope that helps.
>
> > - Jamie
>
> > On Mar 30, 8:31 pm, paws_galuten <jason.galu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I'm new to cakePHP and it seems like the only way to retrieve data
> > > from the data source is as an array. I'm finding that I am using a lot
> > > of code in my controller to prepare the arrays for display in the
> > > view, when I would rather be able to send an object to the view and
> > > get data from that object.
>
> > > For example, if I had a person object, I could have an attribute that
> > > was their birthdate and in the view I could easily get their age with
> > > something like $person->getAge(). If I only have the person as an
> > > array, then I have to do the calculating of the age before I can
> > > display it.
>
> > > Does this make sense? It is a simplistic example, but I can see myself
> > > having to write a lot of code to manipulate arrays before the raw
> > > database data is usable.
>
> > > Thanks for your insights,
> > > Jason

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