Comments on: Stupid CakePHP Controller Tricks

By: k00k

k00k — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:37:19 +0000

Thanks man, exactly what I was looking for.

By: Rick Torzynski

Rick Torzynski — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:24:48 +0000

Thanks for the tip – helped me out!

By: Tgr

Tgr — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:34:18 +0000

$this->set(‘foo_bar’, $foo_bar) vill result in a variable called $foo_bar.
$this->set(compact(‘foo_bar’)) will however result in $fooBar, because Controller::set() calls the variable inflector if and only if the first argument is an array and the second is null.
Can’t decide whether this is intentionally evil or just plain stupid…

By: Promet CakePHP Source» Blog Archive » What is compact() in controller?

Promet CakePHP Source» Blog Archive » What is compact() in controller? — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:59:33 +0000

[...] compact is a native PHP function that creates an array containing variables and their values. Chris Hartjes explains it well in his blog. It’s quite neat because it will save me a few lines and [...]

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 03:40:11 +0000

@Chris: actually, get_defined_vars doesn’t pull in anything beyond what’s in the current method scope. This does *not* include any object properties (from $this) or anything that Cake has defined. It only includes variables you declare, and the parameters of the method itself.

In the view, you can do $this->getVars() to get a listing of variables passed from the controller. Or just do array_keys(get_defined_vars()) in the controller to see what you’re passing. Either way, if you think get_defined_vars() is inefficient, then it’s more than likely that your controller code itself is inefficient, and you’re being lazy in your variable assignments.

By: Chris Hartjes

Chris Hartjes — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:49:19 +0000

@Manny: I don’t imagine there is any sort of performance hit. Which do you think takes more time: using compact to send 4 variables via $this->set() or to run $this->set() 4 times? My money is on compact() being just as fast.

By: Manny

Manny — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:24:45 +0000

Great tip!

Do you know if there are any performance hits with using compact?

By: anty

anty — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:14:39 +0000

The first trick is neat, the second one is terribly ugly
I wouldn’t ever use the second one because if you look at your code after two month you won’t remember what you actually assign to the view.

Thanks for sharing!

By: Chris Hartjes

Chris Hartjes — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:56:26 +0000

@paitken: Thanks for pointing that out, I fixed it in the post

@Geoff: There used to be a segment on Dave Letterman’s show called “Stupid Human Tricks”, so I sort of took the same idea.

@nate: It won’t make you smarter, it just makes your code look better. I worry about what other info get_defined_vars() pulls in thanks to scope issues. Is there a way to print out a list of all variables that are available in a view?

@Lamby: I think if you put {php} and {/php} (replace the curly braces with square braces) around your code sample it should show up in the comments as properly formatted code.

By: Lamby

Lamby — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:17:36 +0000

Aw, my code was eaten by the comment system.