While working on a MediaLeaf project, I ran into an issue with pagination and associations.

Apparently, when you add a fourth association, the default pagination changes to the associated recursive functions. To get just one association that is needed, I had to to return all associations. Needleess to say, this is very cumbersome.

After tinkering for a bit, trying unbindModel, bindModel, and various recursive functions, I discovered the containable behavior. Contain is beautiful. You can modify your associations on the fly and return just the associated data you want.

Here’s how:

// use this to modify your model to be containable on the fly.
$this->Post->Behaviors->attach('Containable');

// only return the post data
$this->Post->contain();

// return tags data with your post
$this->Post->contain("Tag");

This stuff is great. Unfortunately, you have to take it a step further to use it with pagination. Contain has to be added to the pagination array (Hat Tip: Richard @ Home).

// use this to modify your model to be containable on the fly.
$this->Post->Behaviors->attach('Containable');

// now contain your pagination results
$this->paginate = array('order' => array('article_date desc'), 
                        'limit' => 3, 
                        'contain' => array("Tag"));		

Give it a try and hopefully this helps you out.

I ran into an issue today while testing a new Twitter application using CakePHP and an OAuth Vendor that kept giving me a __PHP_Incomplete_Class Object error causing my callback to fail from Twitter.

Here is my original code.

<?php

class MembersController extends AppController {

    function twitter_callback_authenticate() {
      // import oauth vendor
      App::import('Vendor', 'oauth', array('file' => 'OAuth'.DS.'oauth_consumer.php'));
      $consumer = $this->createConsumer();
      $requestToken = $this->Session->read('twitter_request_token');
      .
      .
      .
   }
}
?>

After spending a few hours, I found out what was causing it. Apparently the load process for php objects in CakePHP is delayed if you import your vendor directly in the function. The solution is simple. Just move it outside of the class and it is loaded before the class is.

<?php

App::import('Vendor', 'oauth', array('file' => 'OAuth'.DS.'oauth_consumer.php'));
		
class MembersController extends AppController {

    function twitter_callback_authenticate() {
      $consumer = $this->createConsumer();
      $requestToken = $this->Session->read('twitter_request_token');
      .
      .
      .
   }
}
?>

Hopefully this helps you save a little time before getting hung up on this like I did today.