CakePHP: Select Box Pagination

dom111 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:40:54 +0000

Using CakePHP’s built in pagination system has saved me so much time in my current day job, but the latest designs I’m working on have drop-down box style pagination, as it’s possible to get many pages of results.

To change the named parameters in the current URL I’ve created this small javascript function that will amend the URL:

/**
 * setURL
 *
 * Modifies the current URL and redirects the browser
 *
 * @param string key The name of the parameter to set
 * @param mixed value The value to set the parameter to
 * @return void
 * @author Dom Hastings
 */
function setURL(key, value) {
  // set up the url separators
  var separator = {
    // site.url/controller/action/key1:value1/key2:value2
    'key': '/',
    'value': ':'
  }
 
  // get the current url
  var url = window.location.href;
  // check if the specified key already exists
  var exists = url.indexOf(separator.key + key + separator.value);
 
  // if it does
  if (exists > -1) {
    // find the next separator.key
    var last = url.indexOf(separator.key, exists + 1);
 
    // if there is one
    if (last > -1) {
      // replcae the existing value with the one passed
      url = url.substr(0, exists) + separator.key + key + separator.value + escape(value) + url.substr(last);
 
    // if not
    } else {
      // just append it
      url = url.substr(0, exists) + separator.key + key + separator.value + escape(value);
    }
 
  // if it's not already in there
  } else {
    // if the URL doesn't end with a separator.key
    if (url.substr(-1) != separator.key) {
      // append it
      url += separator.key;
    }
 
    // append the value
    url += key + separator.value + escape(value);
  }
 
  // set the url
  window.location.href = url;
}

Coupled with the following code to my view:

Hopefully it’ll help anyone else deal with a similar problem!

Note: If there’s a simpler, more accessible way to do it, I’d really like to know!

CakePHP: Components, redirect fail (On my part…)

dom111 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:58:46 +0000

I’ve been working on a CakePHP project lately and created a small component which was only needed in one of my controllers:

class CounterComponent extends Component {
  var $components = array(
    'Session'
  );
 
  function i() {
    if ($this->Session->check('Counter.i')) {
      $i = ($this->Session->read('Counter.i') + 1);
 
    } else {
      $i = 0;
    }
 
    $this->Session->write('Counter.i', $i);
 
    return $i;
  }
 
  function clear() {
    $this->Session->delete('Counter.i');
  }
}

It simply kept track of a number over the life of the current session and incremented it each time it was accessed. I did’t think it would interfere in my other controllers, and it didn’t until I tried to perform a simple redirect later on in the app:

  function edit($id) {
    if (!empty($this->data)) {
      // process it
      $this->Customer->id = $id;
 
      $this->Customer->save($this->data);
 
      $this->redirect(array(
        'controller' => 'customers',
        'action' => 'view',
        $id
      ));
 
    } else {
      $this->data = $this->Customer->find('first', array(
        'id' => $id
      ));
 
      extract($this->data);
    }
 
    $this->set(get_defined_vars());
 
    $this->render('form');
  }

That code seemed simple enough, but each and every time it was run, I’d be sent to /customers/edit, instead of /customers/view/1.

WTF? Cake is losing my ids?

So I tried changing the redirect to a string:

      $this->redirect('/customers/view/'.$id);

No difference, still redirects to /customers/edit. Ok fine. Lets try a full URL:

      $this->redirect('http://www.google.co.uk/');

Serisouly. Still? All this happened over a series of a couple of days, each session of ~~coding~~banging my head against a brick wall leaving me more frustrated. I got mad I created a TestsController with an action test which exhibited the same behaviour… (But only after I’d moved everything into the AppController, whilst franticly trying everything… *sigh*)

After many visits to the CakePHP documentation I decided to re-investigate the source code and see if I had missed anything. The Controller::redirect() function contains this code:

		$response = $this->Component->beforeRedirect($this, $url, $status, $exit);
 
		if ($response === false) {
			return;
		}
		if (is_array($response)) {
			foreach ($response as $resp) {
				if (is_array($resp) && isset($resp['url'])) {
					extract($resp, EXTR_OVERWRITE);
				} elseif ($resp !== null) {
					$url = $resp;
				}
			}
		}

“But that’s fine!”, I thought, “I don’t even have a beforeRedirect() function in my component, and surely the class I’m extending will just return null.” Oh dear. Assumption. There it is, done now.

// Component::beforeRedirect
	function beforeRedirect(&$controller, $url, $status = null, $exit = true) {
		$response = array();
 
		foreach ($this->_primary as $name) {
			$component =& $this->_loaded[$name];
 
			if ($component->enabled === true && method_exists($component, 'beforeRedirect')) {
				$resp = $component->beforeRedirect($controller, $url, $status, $exit);
				if ($resp === false) {
					return false;
				}
				$response[] = $resp;
			}
		}
		return $response;
	}

Crap. It returns an empty array, which the redirect() function will use because it isn’t null, which will redirect to the current controller/action but strip out the id.

Lesson: Always, ALWAYS, create a base component to extend, or, alternatively, just read the fricking manual properly.

TL;DR: I failed at creating a CakePHP component. Fix: class MyComponent extends Object {} instead of class MyComponent extends Component {}.

dom111.co.uk » CakePHP

CakePHP: Select Box Pagination

CakePHP: Components, redirect fail (On my part…)