EverSQL Database Performance Knowledge Base
Dynamically add columns to query results via CakePHP 3 ORM queries
Database type:
I'm trying to write a query using CakePHP 3.7 ORM where it needs to add a column to the result set. I know in MySQL this sort of thing is possible: MySQL: Dynamically add columns to query results
So far I've implemented 2 custom finders. The first is as follows:
// src/Model/Table/SubstancesTable.php
public function findDistinctSubstancesByOrganisation(Query $query, array $options)
{
$o_id = $options['o_id'];
$query = $this
->find()
->select('id')
->distinct('id')
->contain('TblOrganisationSubstances')
->where([
'TblOrganisationSubstances.o_id' => $o_id,
'TblOrganisationSubstances.app_id IS NOT' => null
])
->orderAsc('Substances.app_id')
->enableHydration(false);
return $query;
}
The second custom finder:
// src/Model/Table/RevisionSubstancesTable.php
public function findProductNotifications(Query $query, array $options)
{
$date_start = $options['date_start'];
$date_end = $options['date_end'];
$query = $this
->find()
->where([
'RevisionSubstances.date >= ' => $date_start,
'RevisionSubstances.date <= ' => $date_end
])
->contain('Substances')
->enableHydration(false);
return $query;
}
I'm using the finders inside a Controller to test it out:
$Substances = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('Substances');
$RevisionSubstances = TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get('RevisionSubstances');
$dates = // method to get an array which has keys 'date_start' and 'date_end' used later.
$org_substances = $Substances->find('distinctSubstancesByOrganisation', ['o_id' => 123);
if (!$org_substances->isEmpty()) {
$data = $RevisionSubstances
->find('productNotifications', [
'date_start' => $dates['date_start'],
'date_end' => $dates['date_end']
])
->where([
'RevisionSubstances.substance_id IN' => $org_substances
])
->orderDesc('RevisionSubstances.date');
debug($data->toArray());
}
The logic behind this is that I'm using the first custom finder to produce a Query Object which contains unique (DISTINCT in SQL) id fields from the substances table, based on a particular company (denoted by the o_id field). These are then fed into the second custom finder by implementing where(['RevisionSubstances.substance_id IN' ....
This works and gives me all the correct data. An example of the output from the debug() statement is as follows:
(int) 0 => [
'id' => (int) 281369,
'substance_id' => (int) 1,
'date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {
'time' => '2019-09-02T00:00:00+00:00',
'timezone' => 'UTC',
'fixedNowTime' => false
},
'comment' => 'foo',
'substance' => [
'id' => (int) 1,
'app_id' => 'ID000001',
'name' => 'bar',
'date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {
'time' => '2019-07-19T00:00:00+00:00',
'timezone' => 'UTC',
'fixedNowTime' => false
}
]
],
The problem I'm having is as follows: Each of the results returned contains a app_id field (['substance']['app_id'] in the array above). What I need to do is perform a count (COUNT() in MySQL) on another table based on this, and then add that to the result set.
I'm unsure how to do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my understanding is that custom finders return Query Objects, but the query is not executed at this point. Because I haven't executed the query - until calling $data->toArray() - I'm unsure how I would refer to the app_id in a way where it could be referenced per row?
The equivalent SQL that would give me the required results is this:
SELECT COUNT (myalias.app_id) FROM (
SELECT
DISTINCT (tbl_item.i_id),
tbl_item.i_name,
tbl_item.i_code,
tbl_organisation_substances.o_id,
tbl_organisation_substances.o_sub_id,
tbl_organisation_substances.app_id,
tbl_organisation_substances.os_name
FROM
tbl_organisation_substances
JOIN tbl_item_substances
ON tbl_organisation_substances.o_sub_id = tbl_item_substances.o_sub_id
JOIN tbl_item
ON tbl_item.i_id = tbl_item_substances.i_id
WHERE
tbl_item.o_id = 1
AND
tbl_item.date_valid_to IS NULL
AND
tbl_organisation_substances.app_id IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY
tbl_organisation_substances.app_id ASC
) AS myalias
WHERE myalias.app_id = 'ID000001'
This does a COUNT() where the app_id is ID000001.
So in the array I've given previously I need to add something to the array to hold this, e.g.
'substance' => [
// ...
],
'count_app_ids' => 5
(Assuming there were 5 rows returned by the query above).
I have Table classes for all of the tables referred to in the above query.
So my question is, how do you write this using the ORM, and add the result back to the result set before the query is executed?
Is this even possible? The only other solution I can think of is to write the data (from the query I have that works) to a temporary table and then perform successive queries which UPDATE with the count figure based on the app_id. But I'm really not keen on that solution because there are potentially huge performance problems of doing this. Furthermore I'd like to be able to paginate my query so ideally need everything confined to 1 SQL statement, even if it's done across multiple finders.
I've tagged this with MySQL as well as CakePHP because I'm not even sure if this is achievable from a MySQL perspective although it does look on the linked SO post like it can be done? This has the added complexity of having to write the equivalent query using Cake's ORM.