CakePHP Shell Not Seeing MySQL with MAMP Pro MAC

MAMP is a great product. It makes using the MAMP stack on MAC very easy. I liked it so much I actually purchased MAMP Pro. Installing was a breeze, configuration is simple, and it is up and running in no time. However, for some reason, when I am trying to connect to MySQL from a CakePHP shell, the database connection cannot be found.
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Single Login For Multiple User Types with CakePHP

I started working on a project that requires a single login for multiple user types. Because of the way my mind organizes things, I was having difficulty getting my mind around multiple models pointing to the same table in the database. It just felt messy. But I found this to be the best solution. I can provide single user login and keep the user functionality separated.

In this case, I have managers and tenants both pointing to the users table. I simply add a ‘type’ column to the user table to track what type of user it is. Then in my callback methods on the models, I set the conditions for the beforeFind and the beforeSave within each model to it’s corresponding type. This keeps both the data it displays and the data it saves in check and accurate. Here is what my manager model looks like.

<?php
class Manager extends AppModel {

 var $name = 'Manager';
 var $useTable = 'users';

 // only return users where type = Manager
 function beforeFind($queryData) {
$queryData['conditions']['Manager.type'] = 'Manager';
return $queryData;
 }

 // Ensure the Type is set to Manager before saving this record
 function beforeSave() {
$this->data['Manager']['type'] = 'Manager';
return true;
 }

}

?>

The same would apply to the tenants model. This works like a charm. It helps to provide excellent separation between user types without writing a lot of extra code to manage and check for the differences in user types.

Happy coding!

Open Source CakePHP Components

I am getting more focused in my engineering career. Lately I have been feeling a strong desire to contribute to the open source community. Of course by open source community I mean contributing code and making it available to anyone who wants to use it… for free. As such, I decided to pick something I am passionate about. I have decided to create components, helpers, and other bits of code that are usable with the CakePHP framework. I have also decided to make these snippets of code available on GitHub.
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