CakePHP Expandable Plugin

Makes possible to save different fields for each item in two tables without touching schema.

It works like Cake's i18n table

Instalation:

Via git clone into your plugin folder or use composer. For existing applications you can add the following to your composer.json file:

"require": {
	"lubos/expandable": "~1.0"
}

And run php composer.phar update

What it Does:

The ExpandableBehavior will allow you to extend any model with any set of "extra fields" which don't exist in it's schema.

It uses a second table/model as a the key/value table, which links back to the primary table/model. Thus you can store any details you want separate from the main table/model, keeping schema simpler and reducing (main) table size.

Setup:

git clone git://github.com/LubosRemplik/CakePHP-Expandable-Plugin.git app/Plugin/Expandable

You must make a new Table to store the keys/values and optionally a Model for that table. It should be named something like 'my_model_expands', and it needs the following fields:

• a primary ID
• a foreignKey linking back to the primary table
• a "key" field
• a "value" field ** null if you want to get null back, varchar or text depending on what you want to store

In your schema:

	public $my_model_expands = array(
		'id' => array('type' => 'string', 'null' => false, 'default' => null, 'length' => 36, 'key' => 'primary', 'collate' => 'utf8_general_ci', 'charset' => 'utf8'),
		'my_model_id' => array('type' => 'integer', 'null' => false, 'default' => null, 'key' => 'index'),
		'created' => array('type' => 'datetime', 'null' => true, 'default' => null),
		'key' => array('type' => 'string', 'null' => false, 'default' => null, 'length' => 128, 'collate' => 'utf8_general_ci', 'charset' => 'utf8'),
		'value' => array('type' => 'text', 'null' => true, 'default' => null, 'collate' => 'utf8_general_ci', 'charset' => 'utf8'),
		'indexes' => array(
			'PRIMARY' => array('column' => 'id', 'unique' => 1),
			'search' => array('column' => array('account_id', 'key'), 'unique' => 1)
		),
		'tableParameters' => array('charset' => 'utf8', 'collate' => 'utf8_general_ci', 'engine' => 'InnoDB')
	);

And you can create the table via the shell:

./cake schema create
n
y

On MyModel:

Setup the Expandable Behavior, configure "with" the Expand Model, and ensure you put the Expand model into the "hasMany" array.

	public $actsAs = array(
		'Expandable.Expandable' => array(
			'with' => 'MyModelExpand',
		)
	);
	public $hasMany = array('MyModelExpand');

Usage:

Just do normal save() on the model, and a normal find() (containing the Expand data).

Your extra fields, not in the schema, will show up... add as many as you like.

For more information on this functionality, and a plain example of functionality, check out the packaged unit tests

./cake test Expandable Model/Behavior/ExpandableBehavior

Credits:

Primary source:

• @link http://debuggable.com/posts/unlimited-model-fields-expandable-behavior:48428c2e-9a88-47ec-ae8e-77a64834cda3
• @link https://github.com/felixge/debuggable-scraps/blob/master/cakephp/behaviors/expandable/expandable.php
• @link https://github.com/felixge/debuggable-scraps/blob/master/cakephp/behaviors/expandable/expandable.test.php

Repackaged:

• @link https://github.com/LubosRemplik/CakePHP-Expandable-Plugin

Updated:

• @link https://github.com/zeroasterisk/CakePHP-Expandable-Plugin