Configuration¶

Configure Methods¶

Configure::write('Company.name','Pizza, Inc.');
Configure::write('Company.slogan','Pizza for your body and soul');

Configure::write(
    'Company',array('name'=>'Pizza, Inc.','slogan'=>'Pizza for your body and soul')
);

Configure::read('Company.name');    //yields: 'Pizza, Inc.'
Configure::read('Company.slogan');  //yields: 'Pizza for your body and soul'

Configure::read('Company');

//yields:
array('name' => 'Pizza, Inc.', 'slogan' => 'Pizza for your body and soul');

Configure::delete('Company.name');

// /app/config/messages.php:
<?php
$config['Company']['name'] = 'Pizza, Inc.';
$config['Company']['slogan'] = 'Pizza for your body and soul';
$config['Company']['phone'] = '555-55-55';
?>

<?php
Configure::load('messages');
Configure::read('Company.name');
?>

CakePHP Core Configuration Variables¶

The Configure class is used to manage a set of core CakePHP configuration variables. These variables can be found in app/config/core.php. Below is a description of each variable and how it affects your CakePHP application.

Configure Variable

Description

debug

Changes CakePHP debugging output.

0 = Production mode. No output. 1 = Show errors and warnings. 2 = Show errors, warnings, and SQL. 3 = Show errors, warnings, SQL, and complete controller dump.

App.baseUrl

Un-comment this definition if you don’t plan to use Apache’s mod_rewrite with CakePHP. Don’t forget to remove your .htaccess files too.

Routing.admin

Un-comment this definition if you’d like to take advantage of CakePHP admin routes. Set this variable to the name of the admin route you’d like to use. More on this later.

Cache.disable

When set to true, caching is disabled site-wide.

Cache.check

If set to true, enables view caching. Enabling is still needed in the controllers, but this variable enables the detection of those settings.

Session.save

Tells CakePHP which session storage mechanism to use.

• php = Use the default PHP session storage.

• cache = Use the caching engine configured by Cache::config(). Very useful in conjunction with Memcache (in setups with multiple application servers) to store both cached data and sessions.

• cake = Store session data in /app/tmp

• database = store session data in a database table. Make sure to set up the table using the SQL file located at /app/config/sql/sessions.sql.

Session.table

The name of the table (not including any prefix) that stores session information.

Session.database

The name of the database that stores session information.

Session.cookie

The name of the cookie used to track sessions.

Session.timeout

Base session timeout in seconds. Actual value depends on Security.level.

Session.start

Automatically starts sessions when set to true.

Session.checkAgent

When set to false, CakePHP sessions will not check to ensure the user agent does not change between requests.

Security.level

The level of CakePHP security. The session timeout time defined in ‘Session.timeout’ is multiplied according to the settings here. Valid values:

• ‘high’ = x 10

• ‘medium’ = x 100

• ‘low’ = x 300

• ‘high’ and ‘medium’ also enable session.referer_check

CakePHP session IDs are also regenerated between requests if ‘Security.level’ is set to ‘high’.

Security.salt

A random string used in security hashing.

Asset.timestamp

Appends a timestamp which is last modified time of the particular file at the end of asset files urls (CSS, JavaScript, Image) when using proper helpers.

Valid values:

(bool) false - Doesn’t do anything (default) (bool) true - Appends the timestamp when debug > 0 (string) ‘force’ - Appends the timestamp when debug >= 0

Acl.classname, Acl.database

Constants used for CakePHP’s Access Control List functionality. See the Access Control Lists chapter for more information.

Cache configuration is also found in core.php — We’ll be covering that later on, so stay tuned.

The Configure class can be used to read and write core configuration settings on the fly. This can be especially handy if you want to turn the debug setting on for a limited section of logic in your application, for instance.

Configuration Constants¶

While most configuration options are handled by Configure, there are a few constants that CakePHP uses during runtime.

Using App::import()¶

App::import($type, $name, $parent, $search, $file, $return);

At first glance App::import seems complex, however in most use cases only 2 arguments are required.

Here a good explanation of alternatives for being able to utilize another “Model” in your code.

• App::import() only includes the file. So you would new to create a new instance every time. This is not recommended

• ClassRegistry::init() loads the file, adds the instance to the a object map and returns the instance. This is an easy and convenient way to access models.

• Controller::loadModel() Uses ClassRegistry::init() adds the model to a property of the controller and also allows persistModel to be enabled.

While you “can” do any of these things, you should ask yourself why you are creating dependencies on models that are not natural to the controller. If you “have” to do use any of these, its often best to use them in reverse order of how they were described. IE. Controller::loadModel () then CR::init() and lastly App::import().

Importing Core Libs¶

Core libraries such as Sanitize, and Xml can be loaded by:

App::import('Core', 'Sanitize');

The above would make the Sanitize class available for use.

Importing Controllers, Models, Components, Behaviors, and Helpers¶

All application related class should also be loaded with App::import(). The following examples illustrate how to do so.

<?php
// The same as require('controllers/users_controller.php');
App::import('Controller', 'Users');

// We need to load the class
$Users = new UsersController;

// If we want the model associations, components, etc to be loaded
$Users->constructClasses();
?>

<?php
App::import('Component', 'Mailer');

// We need to load the class
$Mailer = new MailerComponent();

?>

Loading from Plugins¶

Loading classes in plugins works much the same as loading app and core classes except you must specify the plugin you are loading from.

App::import('Model', 'PluginName.Comment');

To load APP/plugins/plugin_name/vendors/flickr/flickr.php

App::import('Vendor', 'PluginName.flickr/flickr');

Loading Vendor Files¶

The vendor() function has been deprecated. Vendor files should now be loaded through App::import() as well. The syntax and additional arguments are slightly different, as vendor file structures can differ greatly, and not all vendor files contain classes.

The following examples illustrate how to load vendor files from a number of path structures. These vendor files could be located in any of the vendor folders.

App::import('Vendor', 'geshi');

App::import('Vendor', 'flickr/flickr');

App::import('Vendor', 'SomeName', array('file' => 'some.name.php'));

App::import('Vendor', 'WellNamed', array('file' => 'services'.DS.'well.named.php'));

App::import('Vendor', 'aUniqueIdentifier', array('file' =>'vendorName'.DS.'libFile.php'));

Default Routing¶

Before you learn about configuring your own routes, you should know that CakePHP comes configured with a default set of routes. CakePHP’s default routing will get you pretty far in any application. You can access an action directly via the URL by putting its name in the request. You can also pass parameters to your controller actions using the URL.

URL pattern default routes:
http://example.com/controller/action/param1/param2/param3

The URL /posts/view maps to the view() action of the PostsController, and /products/view_clearance maps to the viewClearance() action of the ProductsController. If no action is specified in the URL, the index() method is assumed.

The default routing setup also allows you to pass parameters to your actions using the URL. A request for /posts/view/25 would be equivalent to calling view(25) on the PostsController, for example.

Named parameters¶

New in CakePHP 1.2 is the ability to use named parameters. You can name parameters and send their values using the URL. A request for /posts/view/title:first+post/category:general would result in a call to the view() action of the PostsController. In that action, you’d find the values of the title and category parameters inside $this->passedArgs[‘title’] and $this->passedArgs[‘category’] respectively.

Some summarizing examples for default routes might prove helpful.

URL to controller action mapping using default routes:

URL: /monkeys/jump
Mapping: MonkeysController->jump();

URL: /products
Mapping: ProductsController->index();

URL: /tasks/view/45
Mapping: TasksController->view(45);

URL: /donations/view/recent/2001
Mapping: DonationsController->view('recent', '2001');

URL: /contents/view/chapter:models/section:associations
Mapping: ContentsController->view();
$this->passedArgs['chapter'] = 'models';
$this->passedArgs['section'] = 'associations';

Defining Routes¶

Defining your own routes allows you to define how your application will respond to a given URL. Define your own routes in the /app/config/routes.php file using the Router::connect() method.

The connect() method takes up to three parameters: the URL you wish to match, the default values for your route elements, and regular expression rules to help the router match elements in the URL.

The basic format for a route definition is:

Router::connect(
    'URL',
    array('paramName' => 'defaultValue'),
    array('paramName' => 'matchingRegex')
)

The first parameter is used to tell the router what sort of URL you’re trying to control. The URL is a normal slash delimited string, but can also contain a wildcard (*) or route elements (variable names prefixed with a colon). Using a wildcard tells the router what sorts of URLs you want to match, and specifying route elements allows you to gather parameters for your controller actions.

Once you’ve specified a URL, you use the last two parameters of connect() to tell CakePHP what to do with a request once it has been matched. The second parameter is an associative array. The keys of the array should be named after the route elements in the URL, or the default elements: :controller, :action, and :plugin. The values in the array are the default values for those keys. Let’s look at some basic examples before we start using the third parameter of connect().

Router::connect(
    '/pages/*',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'display')
);

This route is found in the routes.php file distributed with CakePHP (line 40). This route matches any URL starting with /pages/ and hands it to the display() method of the PagesController(); The request /pages/products would be mapped to PagesController->display('products'), for example.

Router::connect(
    '/government',
    array('controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'display', 5)
);

This second example shows how you can use the second parameter of connect() to define default parameters. If you built a site that features products for different categories of customers, you might consider creating a route. This allows you link to /government rather than /products/display/5.

Another common use for the Router is to define an “alias” for a controller. Let’s say that instead of accessing our regular URL at /users/someAction/5, we’d like to be able to access it by /cooks/someAction/5. The following route easily takes care of that:

Router::connect(
    '/cooks/:action/*', array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'index')
);

This is telling the Router that any url beginning with /cooks/ should be sent to the users controller.

When generating urls, routes are used too. Using array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'someAction', 5) as a url will output /cooks/someAction/5 if the above route is the first match found

If you are planning to use custom named arguments with your route, you have to make the router aware of it using the Router::connectNamed function. So if you want the above route to match urls like /cooks/someAction/type:chef we do:

Router::connectNamed(array('type'));
Router::connect(
    '/cooks/:action/*', array('controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'index')
);

You can specify your own route elements, doing so gives you the power to define places in the URL where parameters for controller actions should lie. When a request is made, the values for these route elements are found in $this->params of the controller. This is different than named parameters are handled, so note the difference: named parameters (/controller/action/name:value) are found in $this->passedArgs, whereas custom route element data is found in $this->params. When you define a custom route element, you also need to specify a regular expression - this tells CakePHP how to know if the URL is correctly formed or not.

Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:id',
    array('action' => 'view'),
    array('id' => '[0-9]+')
);

This simple example illustrates how to create a quick way to view models from any controller by crafting a URL that looks like /controllername/id. The URL provided to connect() specifies two route elements: :controller and :id. The :controller element is a CakePHP default route element, so the router knows how to match and identify controller names in URLs. The :id element is a custom route element, and must be further clarified by specifying a matching regular expression in the third parameter of connect(). This tells CakePHP how to recognize the ID in the URL as opposed to something else, such as an action name.

Once this route has been defined, requesting /apples/5 is the same as requesting /apples/view/5. Both would call the view() method of the ApplesController. Inside the view() method, you would need to access the passed ID at $this->params['id'].

One more example, and you’ll be a routing pro.

Router::connect(
    '/:controller/:year/:month/:day',
    array('action' => 'index', 'day' => null),
    array(
        'year' => '[12][0-9]{3}',
        'month' => '0[1-9]|1[012]',
        'day' => '0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01]'
    )
);

This is rather involved, but shows how powerful routes can really become. The URL supplied has four route elements. The first is familiar to us: it’s a default route element that tells CakePHP to expect a controller name.

Next, we specify some default values. Regardless of the controller, we want the index() action to be called. We set the day parameter (the fourth element in the URL) to null to flag it as being optional.

Finally, we specify some regular expressions that will match years, months and days in numerical form. Note that parenthesis (grouping) are not supported in the regular expressions. You can still specify alternates, as above, but not grouped with parenthesis.

Once defined, this route will match /articles/2007/02/01, /posts/2004/11/16, and /products/2001/05 (as defined, the day parameter is optional as it has a default), handing the requests to the index() actions of their respective controllers, with the date parameters in $this->params.

Passing parameters to action¶

Assuming your action was defined like this and you want to access the arguments using $articleID instead of $this->params['id'], just add an extra array in the 3rd parameter of Router::connect().

// some_controller.php
function view($articleID = null, $slug = null) {
    // some code here...
}

// routes.php
Router::connect(
    // E.g. /blog/3-CakePHP_Rocks
    '/blog/:id-:slug',
    array('controller' => 'blog', 'action' => 'view'),
    array(
        // order matters since this will simply map ":id" to $articleID in your action
        'pass' => array('id', 'slug'),
        'id' => '[0-9]+'
    )
);

And now, thanks to the reverse routing capabilities, you can pass in the url array like below and Cake will know how to form the URL as defined in the routes.

// view.ctp
// this will return a link to /blog/3-CakePHP_Rocks
<?php echo $html->link('CakePHP Rocks', array(
    'controller' => 'blog',
    'action' => 'view',
    'id' => 3,
    'slug' => Inflector::slug('CakePHP Rocks')
)); ?>

Prefix Routing¶

Many applications require an administration section where privileged users can make changes. This is often done through a special URL such as /admin/users/edit/5. In CakePHP, admin routing can be enabled from within the core configuration file by setting the admin path for Routing.admin.

Configure::write('Routing.admin', 'admin');

In your controller, any action with an admin_ prefix will be called. Using our users example, accessing the url /admin/users/edit/5 would call the method admin_edit of our UsersController passing 5 as the first parameter. The view file used would be app/views/users/admin_edit.ctp

You can map the url /admin to your admin_index action of pages controller using following route

Router::connect('/admin', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'index', 'admin' => true));

You can configure the Router to use multiple prefixes too:

Router::connect('/profiles/:controller/:action/*', array('prefix' => 'profiles', 'profiles' => true));

Any calls to the profiles section would look for the profiles_ prefix on the method calls. Our users example would have a URL structure that looks like /profiles/users/edit/5 would call the profiles_edit method within the UsersController.

Wildcard prefix routing is available using the named element :prefix similar to :controller and :action. You can map the url /api/user/create to your user_create action of api controller using the following route

Router::connect('/api/:prefix/:action', array('controller' => 'api'));

Additionally you can map the url /api/question/create to your question_create action of api controller or /api/question/edit to your question_edit action of api controller.

Also important to remember, using the HTML helper to build your links will help maintain the prefix calls. Here’s how to build this link using the HTML helper:

echo $html->link('Edit your profile', array('profiles' => true, 'controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'edit', 'id' => 5));

You can set up multiple prefixed routes using this approach to create a flexible URL structure for your application.

Plugin routing¶

Plugin routing uses the plugin key. You can create links that point to a plugin by adding the plugin key to your url array.

echo $html->link('New todo', array('plugin' => 'todo', 'controller' => 'todo_items', 'action' => 'create'));

Conversely if the active request is a plugin request and you want to create a link that has no plugin you can do the following.

echo $html->link('New todo', array('plugin' => null, 'controller' => 'users', 'action' => 'profile'));

By setting plugin => null you tell the Router that you want to create a link that is not part of a plugin.

File extensions¶

To handle different file extensions with your routes, you need one extra line in your routes config file:

Router::parseExtensions('html', 'rss');

This will tell the router to remove any matching file extensions, and then parse what remains.

If you want to create a URL such as /page/title-of-page.html you would create your route as illustrated below:

Router::connect(
    '/page/:title',
    array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'view'),
    array(
        'pass' => array('title')
    )
);

Then to create links which map back to the routes simply use:

$html->link('Link title', array('controller' => 'pages', 'action' => 'view', 'title' => Inflector::slug('text to slug', '-'), 'ext' => 'html'))