CakePHP 2 Application Cookbook: Over 60 useful recipes for rapid application development with the CakePHP framework

346 Pages·2014·3.81 MB·English

by  James Watts

www.it-ebooks.info
CakePHP 2
Application Cookbook
Over 60 useful recipes for rapid application development
with the CakePHP framework
Jorge González
James Watts
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
www.it-ebooks.info
CakePHP 2 Application Cookbook
Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers
and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2014
Production reference: 1040814
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78216-008-3
www.packtpub.com
Cover image by Larry Masters, taken at CakeFest, the annual CakePHP conference
www.it-ebooks.info
Credits
Authors Project Coordinator
Jorge González Danuta Jones
James Watts
Proofreaders
Simran Bhogal
Reviewer
Lubomír Štork Sandra Hopper
Amy Johnson
Acquisition Editor
Owen Roberts
Indexer
Priya Subramani
Content Development Editors
Joanne Fitzpatrick
Production Coordinator
Owen Roberts Nitesh Thakur
Technical Editors Cover Work
Tanvi Bhatt Nitesh Thakur
Faisal Siddiqui

Copy Editors
Roshni Banerjee
Sayanee Mukherjee
Karuna Narayanan
www.it-ebooks.info
Foreword
It's been almost 10 years now since I first worked on what would be known as CakePHP, one
of the most popular PHP frameworks available today. Over the years, I've been involved and
have also seen through other developers how it's evolved and advanced with contributions
from the amazing community that's grown up around the project. I'm so proud of all the work
that has gone into the framework; this work has helped make it such a powerful contender
when it comes to choosing an open source solution.
As the latest version of the framework, 2.5 represents the best of CakePHP to date, and truly
reflects the goals we had right from the very beginning: to make building web applications
simpler, faster, and require less code. I believe we've done a lot to keep this promise in making
CakePHP a framework that really is an "out-of-the-box" solution, while also maintaining a strong
backward compatibility, which allows developers to keep using it without worrying about us
totally abandoning legacy or significantly changing the code base they know best and love.
We've also been very serious about maintaining a migration path so that our community
can move between versions of the framework, providing not only a clear outline of the new
features and updates expected between versions, but also a migration shell, which handles
most of the work for you. This has always been a trademark of CakePHP that I've been
consistent in supporting, as it sends a clear message to our community that we have no
intentions of leaving anyone behind and think about them every step of the way.
There's no doubt that the community drive behind CakePHP is what makes it such a popular
option in the PHP framework's space, and it has been the principal factor in determining its
success. If you're looking to build a great web application in record time that supports industry
standards and common integrations through thousands of plugins, while also being backed
by extensive documentation and a thorough API reference as well as a huge community for
support and discussion, then look no further than CakePHP.
This book will help you jump right in and get a clear idea of how the framework can solve
those typical issues you'll encounter when building an application. It provides a great
head-first dive into CakePHP and will advance your knowledge of the framework by
approaching the problems that will likely matter most early on.
Larry Masters
Founder of CakePHP
www.it-ebooks.info
About the Authors
Jorge González has a degree in Computer Science and Engineering as well as extensive
experience in different positions from development to consulting and management, allowing
him to quickly understand problems and provide effective solutions. He started using
CakePHP many years ago and has never looked back since, applying the framework to several
projects and domains, specifically, the hospitality and tourism sector, where he has worked
for over 8 years before joining the Cake Development Corporation (CakeDC). He also runs the
official CakePHP standard training course for the Cake Software Foundation and the basic
workshop at CakeFest since 2013.
This book is dedicated to the girls in my life: my mother, Ana, and my wife,
Kathrin. Thank you for your endless love and support.

I'd also like to thank Larry Masters and José Lorenzo for giving me the
opportunity to start working in CakeDC, the best team and the best people
I've ever met.
www.it-ebooks.info
James Watts is an experienced enterprise PHP architect, with a long track record in open
source development. He is a core member of CakePHP and also handles community efforts,
such as organizing CakeFest, the annual conference dedicated to the framework. He has also
authored various technical specifications such as the Extended Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(XHTTP) and the Documentation Markup Language (DocML). Professionally, he is the acting
director of the Cake Development Corporation (CakeDC), the commercial entity behind the
framework, where he works alongside Larry Masters, the founder of CakePHP.
It's impossible to not thank the CakePHP community around the world for
making the project what it is today. I would also like to thank Larry Masters,
Mark Story, Jose Lorenzo, Andy Dawson, Mark Scherer, Adnan Sarela, Marc
Ypes, Jose Gonzalez, Christian Winther, Rachman Chavik, Juan Basso,
Renan Gonçalves, Pierre Martin, Marc Würth, Bryan Crowe, and the rest of
the core team and amazing people who have come and gone, and dedicated
their time and passion to the framework; you guys are truly awesome.

I also want to thank my beautiful wife, Laura, for supporting me at every
step of the way, and also our baby (work in progress), who, when born,
will become the most important project in my life.
www.it-ebooks.info
About the Reviewer
Lubomír Štork is an experienced software and database architect at the Cake
Development Corporation (CakeDC) and has been actively using CakePHP since 2005.
He is an author of TranslateBehavior in Version 1.2 of the framework and has also
contributed to several other software libraries as well as provided help in open source
community support channels.
www.it-ebooks.info
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your
book.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub
files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print
book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at
[email protected] for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up
for a range of free newsletters, and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books
and eBooks.
TM
http://PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book
library. Here, you can access, read and search across Packt's entire library of books.
Why Subscribe?
f Fully searchable across every book published by Packt
f Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content
f On demand and accessible via a web browser
Free Access for Packt account holders
If you have an account with Packt at www.PacktPub.com, you can use this to access
PacktLib today and view nine entirely free books. Simply use your login credentials for
immediate access.
www.it-ebooks.info
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Lightning Introduction 7
Introduction 7
Listing and viewing records 8
Adding and editing records 17
Deleting records 23
Adding a login 26
Including a plugin 32
Chapter 2: Advanced Routing 41
Introduction 41
Adding a prefix 41
Handling languages 51
Custom route class 53
Dispatch filter 59
Chapter 3: HTTP Negotiation 65
Introduction 65
Parsing extensions 65
Processing Ajax requests 68
Building a response 72
Uploading a file 74
Using a detector 80
Working with cookies 82
Cache control 87
Error handling 90
www.it-ebooks.info