I have a table called user_relationship. which has two foreign keys refering back to the User table to map that they are friends.
CREATE TABLE `user_relationships` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`status` varchar(255) default 'pending',
`time` datetime default NULL,
`user_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
`friend_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `fk_user_relationships_users1` (`user_id`),
KEY `fk_user_relationships_users2` (`friend_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
when i try to bake it naturally doesnt understand that the friend_id has to refer to User module. i wanna manual edit the code but o have some problem understanding what parts to edit in the following
var $belongsTo = array(
'User' => array(
'className' => 'User',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'conditions' => '',
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
),
'Friend' => array(
'className' => 'Friend',
'foreignKey' => 'friend_id',
'conditions' => '',
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
)
);
In this part of the code i wanna refer the friend_id to the User Table
'Friend' => array(
'className' => 'Friend',
'foreignKey' => 'friend_id',
'conditions' => '',
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
)
i tried doing this.. do i need to change anything else ?
'Friend' => array(
'className' => 'Friend',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'conditions' => '',
'fields' => '',
'order' => ''
)
How about this?
class UserRelationship {
var $belongsTo = array(
'User' => array(
'className' => 'User',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id'
),
'Friend' => array(
'className' => 'User',
'foreignKey' => 'friend_id'
)
);
}
class User {
var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
'Friend' => array(
'className' => 'User',
'joinTable' => 'user_relationships',
'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
'associationForeignKey' => 'friend_id',
'with' => 'UserRelationship'
)
);
}
Associations can be seen from different points of view:
User <- Relationship -> User
| | |
hasMany belongsTo |
Relationship <- User (user_id) hasMany
| User (friend_id) -> Relationship
| |
HABTM HABTM
User <----------------------> User
Your "physical" layout, i.e. database schema, is User -> Relationship -> User. Your real desired relationship is a User -> User relationship though. Technically that translates into a User hasAndBelongsToMany User association (also called many-to-many). Since it uses three models, a many-to-many association can be broken down into:
You don't need the hasAndBelongsToMany association, but it's what you actually want. You don't really need the Relationship model at all, since it's just a helper model to connect the two Users, but if you do want to specify its associations as well, it has two belongsTo associations.