Re: Help with hasAndBelongsToMany Association Between Two Models - Team and Game

[Joshua Benner]

Wole, Understanding the differences between the relation types can be a little difficult at first. I still struggle with remembering, because it can make sense semantically either way! :) My rule of thumb is this: - If a table record "has" another record, the foreign record points to this record - If a table record "belongs" to another record, this record points to the foreign record I'll often say it to myself this way: "If I _have_, then they point to me, but if I _belong_, I point to them" Therefore, according to your schema, I would make the following assertions: 1. Every Team has many (home) Games 2. Every Team has many (away) Games 3. Every Game belongs to a Season 4. Every Game belongs to one home team 5. Every Game belongs to one away team To associate the same model to different keys, do something along these lines: class Team extends AppModel {     $var name = "Team";     $var hasMany = array(         'HomeGames' => array( 'className' => 'Game', 'foreignKey' => 'home'),         'AwayGames' => array( 'className' => 'Game', 'foreignKey' => 'visitor')     ); } class Game extends AppModel {     $var name = "Game";     $var belongsTo = array(        'Season'  => array( 'className' => 'Season' ),   // NOTE: You can leave season_id out, as it is assumed        'Home'    => array( 'className' => 'Team', 'foreignKey' => 'home'),        'Visitor' => array( 'className' => 'Team', 'foreignKey' => 'visitor')     ); } Then, when you do something like     $this->Team->recursive = 1;  //(if it's not already set)     $this->set('myTeam', $this->Team->find($conditions)); you will have access to the Teams' games in the view like this $myTeam['HomeGames']; Does that help? Wole wrote: Chris, Thanks for your response. Can you please explain a little more? My games database has two columns, "home" and "visitor", that specify the names of the teams that played the game. To do a Game belongsTo Team association I need one foreignKey but in this case I have two possible foreignKeys, "home" and "visitor". How will the above associations work in my case? Do I need to change my database structure? Please see database table listing below. Thanks. GAMES ====== `id` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '', `season_id` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '', `gamedatetime` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `home` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', `visitor` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', `homescore` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `visitorscore` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `winner` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '', `created` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `modified` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', PRIMARY KEY (`id`) TEAMS ====== `id` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '', `city_id` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '', `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', `played` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `wins` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `losses` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `draws` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `description` text NOT NULL, `created` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `modified` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', PRIMARY KEY (`id`) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cake PHP" group. To post to this group, send email to cake-php@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---