Stumbling upon postConditions, this flipped what I felt about creating a filter function.

So here’s what we are going to try, we’ll create a filter function for messages as example. Let’s assume you have the table, model, controller and some CRUD done and working for messages.

Let us begin by creating the view first since we’re getting the filter conditions from the form. It’s this file: ‘app/views/messages/filter_messages.ctp’.

 
<h2>Filter Messages</h2>
<?php
echo $form->create('Message', array('action' => 'filter_messages'));
echo $form->input('message');
echo $form->input('from');
echo $form->end('Submit Filter');
?>
<hr />
<h2>Filter Results: </h2>
<?php
//display apa kita jumpa kat sini
foreach($messages as $message):
    echo $message['Message']['message'] ;
    echo "<hr />";
endforeach;
?>

Then add the filter function to the app/controllers/messages_controller.php.

 
function filter_messages() {
        //simple initialization for the variable that'll carry the result
        $messages = array();
        //checks if we sent something to filter via the form (remember sent items go to $this->data)
        if($this->data) {
 
            /*
             * here comes postConditions
             * first parameter is the posted value,
             * 
             * the second parameter (array('message' => 'LIKE'))
             * tells postCondition for the fields we're looking at and what type of
             * condition we want to use for that field item. So in this case, we want to use 'LIKE' for field 'message'
             * therefore the sql generated will look similar to "SELECT * FROM messages as Message WHERE Message.message LIKE '%whatever%' "
             * 
             * the third parameter, will tell what is the boolean condition among each
             * condition we set for the find (you know like if we want 'message' is like 'b' AND the message came from 'dude')
             * 
             * last and quite least (heh), if we set true, only the fields we set in the second parameter will be considered. 
             * if false, any field in $this->data will be used. nifty huh.
             */
            $conditions = $this->postConditions( $this->data,
                                                 array('message' => 'LIKE'),
                                                 'OR',
                                                 false
                                               );
 
            //the usual find() function.
            $messages = $this->Message->find('all', array('conditions'=> $conditions));
        }
 
        //sends result to the view.
        $this->set('messages', $messages);
 
    }
?>

That’s it!

An additional note: Controller::postConditions() doesn’t mean you have to use the data posted but you can also ready your own array in the usual $myarray['Model']['field1'] format and use that as parameter.

<?php
 $tobefiltered = array('Message' => (
                        array(
                               'message'=>'this is my message',
                               'created' => '2009-09-09 21:09:09',
                               'from' => '013xxxxxxxxxx'
                              )
                       );
 $condition_generated = $this->postConditions($tobefiltered);
 
?>

The module is simply to allow a student to send in queries to a panel of teachers. A registered student submits a question, the panel gets a notification via email that a question was submitted and then the panel would answer if they want to. Quite a simple module but since I’m just starting to do it the Drupal way, it would take more time than the usuals.

Maybe.

After a day of going through the tutorials, API and whatnot, I think I’ve got enough to get the module up and running. But patience is a virtue and over-confidence is the fall of many many men. So let’s just study more of this so that we can do this properly and avoid problems later on.

note: Considering to just mutilate Drupal’s comment module to add in what I need.

But it was worth losing. There were really good people there.

I was assigned to TextPattern cms and the code structure was pretty easy to understand. They didn’t have (yet) any db abstraction and looking at the code didn’t feel like doing any until later. The unstable code in subversion seems to point out that they want to provide this. Or… it could be just to support some mysql forks.

So I started with putting in the DB layer from their newer version into the stable one. Then after several mishaps later, I had a broken MSSQL support and basically gave up after, in my opinion, lobotomising good code. So in the end I lost.

It was good fun. Quite a while since I had to juggle stuffs in my life and this is good practice.

Blessed with this idea after Ramadhan but hope everybody, and myself, find it especially useful for the next Ramadhan.

This blogger widget randomly displays one prayer (english translation) from the seventy prayers written down by Hasan Al-Basri, a respected scholar born in 21 AH and brought up in the house of Umm Salama (ra).

You can order the book at amazon. It’s right over here. Highly recommended!

As of writting, there’s about 5 prayers in the database. I’ll fill it up soonest. . (Update: All done.)

regards.

/** Update **/
I guess this stuff is done! Works fine so far.

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//in the controller use this...
$this->Post->find('first', $params);
 
//instead of the 'old' style...
$this->Post->find($conditions);
 
//so that in the model, you can do something like this...
function beforeFind($queryData) {
          $queryData['conditions']["`Post`.`post_type`"] = "personal";
          return($queryData);
}

Ada masanya kita perlu mengubah condition carian-carian kita pada satu-satu model. Selain meletakkan condition query itu setiap kali kita melakukan find, kita boleh menggunakan function callback pada model iaitu function beforeFind(). Ia menerima satu parameter iaitu $queryData, variable array yang menyimpan maklumat untuk find seperti ‘conditions’, ‘limit’, ‘joins’ dan sebagainya.

Tidak seperti tertera pada dokumentasi cakePHP, sebenarnya untuk beforeFind kita dapat memulangkan samada boolean (true/false) ataupun satu array . Jika kita memulangkan boolean, ia samada menjalankan query tersebut atau tidak: true untuk teruskan query, false untuk tidak membuat query.

Apa yang tidak disebut ialah jika kita mahu menukarkan apa2 pada syarat query itu, kita perlu buat perubahan pada $queryData dan pulangkan $queryData itu (return ($queryData)). Contoh…

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/**
* ini contoh untuk menambahkan syarat pada find kita. Ini pada model AccomodationTravelBooking
**/
function beforeFind($queryData) {
     $queryData['conditions'][] = "`AccomodationTravelBooking.booking_type` = 'accomodation'";
     return($queryData);
}

Contoh diberi pada dokumentasi cakephp ialah jika kita tidak membenarkan query dilakukan mengikut syarat2 tertentu:

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/**
* ini contoh untuk menambahkan syarat pada find kita. Ini pada model AccomodationTravelBooking
**/
function beforeFind($queryData) {
    //kononnya id 44 tu satu ID yang kita tak benarkan untuk diquery
    if($queryData['conditions']['AccomodationTravelBooking.id'] == 44) {
       return(false);
    }
 
    return(true);
 }

nota update: tak baca betul2, camtu la resultnya.

Berikut beberapa contoh penggunaannya.

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//first. mendapatkan satu rekod sahaja (yang pertama dicapai oleh database)
$condition = array('Post.user_id' => 3 ); //capai blog-post yang dibuat oleh user 3
$posts_by_user =  $this->Post->find('first', $condition);
echo $posts_by_user['Post']['title']; //memaparkan title post berkenaan.

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//all. mendapatkan semua rekod mengikut syarat yang kita tetapkan dalam $condition
$condition = array('Post.user_id' => 3 ); //capai blog-post yang dibuat oleh user 3
$posts_by_user =  $this->Post->find('all', $condition);
pr($posts_by_user); //ini akan memaparkan kandungan array iaitu kesemua rekod kepunyaan user 3

model::findAll() akan dibuang (deprecated) dalam versi akhir 1.2 jadi kita patut menggunakan model::find untuk mencapai rekod-rekod dalam cakephp.

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//count. mengira berapa rekod yang dicapai
$condition = array('Post.user_id' => 3 ); //capai blog-post yang dibuat oleh user 3
$count_posts_by_user =  $this->Post->find('count', $condition); //ini memulangkan integer
echo $posts_by_user; //akan terpapar jumlah rekod ie 6

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//list. mendapatkan senarai rekod
//dalam bentuk yang sesuai untuk diguna dalam $form->input jenis 'select' (contohnya)
//+++++++++++++++ controller +++++++++++++++++++++++++++//
 
$states =  $this->State->find('list');
$this->set('states', $states); //hantarkan kepada view...
//+++++++++++++++ view +++++++++++++++++++++++++++//
 
//di view pula...
echo $form->input('negeri', array('options'=>$states)); //ini akan paparkan dropdown senarai negeri.