cakephp column mapping

Question

I have just started working with CakePHP, so I am a complete newbie with working in this framework and have taken on a legacy system with a pretty awful database structure. I went in and added primary keys to the tables that didn't have them. However, I can't find information on where to map columns in the model, and could use some links so I can get oriented in this area. I'm starting with their user table, which has been named "system". I created a model called User:

class User extends AppModel {
    var $name = 'User'; 
    var $useTable = 'system';       
}

I want to map the columns to property names that are more in line with conventions without changing the existing database, since they are currently using that table. The table structure is:

Table: system

Field Name     DataType     Nullable   Default
------------------------------------------------------------------
user_id        tinyint(4)   No         None AUTO_INCREMENT
s_rec_type     tinyint(4)   Yes        NULL
s_user_id      varchar(20)  Yes        NULL
s_init         char(2)      Yes        NULL 
s_password     varchar(12)  Yes        NULL
admin_access   tinyint(4)   No         0
fname          varchar(50)  No
lname          varchar(50)  No
email_address  varchar(50)  Yes        NULL
created        datetime     Yes        NULL
modified       datetime     Yes        NULL

// I added email_address, created, and modified.

I want to map the columns in the model as follows:

user_id       -> Id
s_rec_type    -> UserType
s_user_id     -> UserName
s_init        -> Initials
s_password    -> Password
admin_access  -> AdminAccess
fname         -> FirstName
lname         -> LastName
email_address -> EmailAddress
created       -> Created
modified      -> Modified

so that I can use the methods like $this->User->findAllById($id) or $this->User->findByInitials('sb') or access the id by $this->User->id instead of something like $this->User->user_id and be more consistent with naming conventions with code that is easier to understand.

This table will be used also to determine what menu options users have access to and which pages the user can access. I'll deal with that later.

Answer 1

I would take a look at virtual fields. Your model attribute initialization might look like this:

var virtualFields = array (
    'UserType' => 's_rec_type',
    'UserName' => 's_user_id',
    'Initials' => 's_init',
    .....
    'Modified' => 'modified'
);