Nice trick to toggle your Model field in CakePHP

This little trick will allow you toggle any field, for example ‘status’ which can be either 0 or 1…

Add this little function to your model or better yet, app model:

Multiple checkboxes

One question that I’ve seen come up a few times is: “How do I handle multiple checkboxes in a form?”
The only trick here is the way you name your checkbox form element. Let’s consider an example where you’d like to select multiple messages (by using checkboxes) and then delete these messages…

Dealing with calculated fields in CakePHP’s find()

Let’s say we’ve got some calculated field in our find() method, something like SUM() or COUNT() or maybe AVG().

For the sake of example let’s do something simplistic, like:

Use Sanitize::html() class in the views

Update (9/16/2008): As some people pointed out it’s easier to use the h() method defined in basics.php of the core, it achieves the same basic goal, but since Sanitize class has other methods and purposes, I’m gong to leave this as an informational example and…

Sharing CakePHP session with another app

This question pops up once in a while: “How do I share session data with a third-party application?”

Thankfully the answer is pretty simple, just make sure that the session (cookie) name is the same for both apps.
In CakePHP it’s set…

Validating a checkbox in CakePHP 1.2

In a few simple words: use the ‘comparison’ rule to validate a checkbox.

To give you an example, let’s say a user needs to agree to the terms of service when registering a new account. In your User model you setup a rule for the checkbox as…

Fatten up your Models

CakePHP models, unlike super models should be fat. It’s a good practice to keep redundant code out of your controllers. Here’s a quick example on how you can keep your controllers skinny and models fat.