When it comes to optimizing your CakePHP queries, you need to abandon Recursive and adopt Containable.
In the example below I have the following models:
The associations in the model are:
When I started to dig in to investigate using the Security Component of CakePHP, I was a bit daunted. It took me quite a while to get my head around ACL after all. Then I found this article. Here’s the crux:
The Security component will create a hash based on the form fields produced by our Form Helper. If someone tampers with the form fields (by adding or removing or changing any field), the hash is not going to match with the expected one and the add() action will fail.
Yep, it’s that simple.
Really? It just can’t be that easy, can it? Yes. It can. I simply added the Security Component to my controller like so:
var $components = array('Security');Sure enough, when I reloaded a page with a form in my browser, this hidden field was there:
<input id="TokenFields1483167134" name="data[_Token][fields]" type="hidden" value="f513aebc448fabe42c7feedf31d43fa5bd71ec79%3An%3A0%3A%7B%7D" />
I installed a Firefox Add-on that allowed me to tamper with the POST data, and when I submitted the form, it failed, or in CakePHP terms, it was “Blackholed.” Awesome.
This isn’t going to protect me from all attacks, but it certainly is a good, easy start to implementing security in my application.
As someone who is not formally trained as a programmer, I often understand concepts long before actually putting them into practice. Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) seems simple enough. Of course I don’t want to repeat myself while programming. Who wants to dig through lines of code to find a litte snippet of logic you once wrote? Still, when you’re pressed for time, sometimes you just have to Get Things Done (GTD). So best practices go through the window and you hammer out some spaghetti code so you can move on.
It’s only recently, since I’ve slowed down to finally understand how to write CakePHP Components, that I’ve realized that DRY enhances GTD. Now that I’ve got it all straight in my head, I’m a component evangelist.
At this point I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with MCV architecture and its benefits. Once in a while there’s a bit of logic that you find yourself coding into a controller that you realize you’re going to want to use in other controllers. It’s not specific to the model. That’s where components come in. They’re bits of logic that can be used by more than one controller. Let’s look at a simple one that converts mm/dd/yyyy dates to a Unix timestamp.
<?php class DateComponent extends Object { function mkTimestamp($sentdate, $senttime){ $thedate = explode('/', $sentdate); if(!empty($senttime)){ $thetime = explode(':', $senttime); $newdate = mktime($thetime[0],$thetime[1],0,$thedate[0],$thedate[1],$thedate[2]); } else { $newdate = mktime(0,0,0,$thedate[0],$thedate[1],$thedate[2]); } return $newdate; } } ?>
The function itself is not all that complicated. The thing is that I’m going to want to use this where ever I need to convert dates. Since the component is called “Date”, it’s named with the CakePHP convention for components: DateComponent. The file is called date.php and is saved in app/controllers/components.
Now we have to tell our controller(s) to use it. I’m using it across several controllers, so I’m adding it to app/app_controller.php by adding it to the $components var: var $components = array('Date');
Now I can access it in any controller like so: $tmsmp = $this->Date->mkTimestamp($thedate, $thetime);
The whole point is that components don’t have to be complex, they’re just code you want to reuse that doesn’t necessary apply to one model. They will save you time and clean up your controllers.
Every now and then I want to view my help files in pretty, formatted HTML instead of plain text in a text editor or terminal window. Right now I’m working on setting up some Access Control Lists (ACL) in the CakePHP Console. ACL is a powerful, yet sometimes hard-to-grasp concept. I always figure that if I want a resource like this, there has to be someone else out there who does, so for your reference and mine, here it is. (By the way, to get to this from the console, simply type cake acl help.)
Usage: cake acl <command> <arg1> <arg2>...
———————————————–
Commands:
create aro|aco <parent> <node>
Creates a new ACL object <node> under the parent specified by <parent>, an id/alias.
The <parent> and <node> references can be in one of the following formats:
i.e. ‘John’. When used with <parent>, this takes the form of an alias path,
i.e. <group>/<subgroup>/<parent>.
To add a node at the root level, enter ‘root’ or ‘/’ as the <parent> parameter.
delete aro|aco <node>
Deletes the ACL object with the given <node> reference (see ‘create’ for info on node references).
setParent aro|aco <node> <parent>
Moves the ACL object specified by <node> beneath the parent ACL object specified by <parent>.
To identify the node and parent, use the row id.
getPath aro|aco <node>
Returns the path to the ACL object specified by <node>. This command is useful in determining the inhertiance of permissions for a certain object in the tree.
For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
check <aro_id> <aco_id> [<aco_action>] or all
Use this command to check ACL permissions.
For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
grant <aro_id> <aco_id> [<aco_action>] or all
Use this command to grant ACL permissions. Once executed, the ARO specified (and its children, if any) will have ALLOW access to the specified ACO action (and the ACO’s children, if any). For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
deny <aro_id> <aco_id> [<aco_action>]or all
Use this command to deny ACL permissions. Once executed, the ARO specified (and its children, if any) will have DENY access to the specified ACO action (and the ACO’s children, if any). For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
inherit <aro_id> <aco_id> [<aco_action>]or all
Use this command to force a child ARO object to inherit its permissions settings from its parent. For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
view aro|aco [<node>]
The view command will return the ARO or ACO tree. The optional id/alias parameter allows you to return only a portion of the requested tree. For more detailed parameter usage info, see help for the ‘create’ command.
initdb
Uses this command : cake schema run create DbAcl
help [<command>]
Displays this help message, or a message on a specific command.
Usage: cake acl <command> <arg1> <arg2>…
———————————————–
create aro|aco <parent> <node>
<node> under the parent specified by <parent>, an id/alias. The <parent> and <node> references can be in one of the following formats:
<model>.<id> – The node will be bound to a specific record of the given model<alias> – The node will be given a string alias (or path, in the case of <parent>), i.e. ‘John’. When used with <parent>, this takes the form of an alias path, i.e. <group>/<subgroup>/<parent>. To add a node at the root level, enter ‘root’ or ‘/’ as the <parent> parameter.Updated 12/3/2008
The other day I wrote about getting the Blueprint CSS framework into your Wordpress theme. If you’re developing in CakePHP, it’s even easier to link multiple style sheets and JavaScript libraries to your layout file.
<?php
$css = array('blueprint/screen', 'blueprint/ie', 'style');
$jslibraries = array('prototype', 'scriptaculous', 'jquery');
echo $html->css('blueprint/print', 'stylesheet', 'media="print"');
echo $html->css($css, 'stylesheet', 'media=”screen, projection”');
echo $javascript->link($jslibraries);
?>
Let’s take these one at a time.
$css = array('blueprint/screen', 'blueprint/ie', 'style');
CakePHP’s html helper will load any css file you specify. First, make sure the css files are in app/webroot/css. Then put any css files you want to link to your layout in an array like I have above. You might have noticed that I didn’t include print in my array. That’s because we want to add an media=”print” as a separate attribute that the other style sheets won’t have.
Once they’re loaded into your array, simply put echo $html->css($css); in the head of your layout. The output will be:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/app/webroot/css/blueprint/screen.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/app/webroot/css/blueprint/ie.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/app/webroot/css/style.css" />
We still haven’t linked our print style sheet. Make sure you link the print style sheet above the others so they override it. We can add media="print" by putting this into our layout head:
echo $html->css('blueprint/print', 'stylesheet', 'media="print"');
So now:
$css = array('blueprint/screen', 'blueprint/ie', 'style');
echo $html->css('blueprint/print', 'stylesheet', 'media="print"');
echo $html->css($css, 'stylesheet', 'media=”screen, projection”');
Results in:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/cvp-msi/https/app/webroot/css/blueprint/print.css" media="print" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/cvp-msi/https/app/webroot/css/blueprint/screen.css" media="screen, projection" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/cvp-msi/https/app/webroot/css/blueprint/ie.css" media="screen, projection" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/cvp-msi/https/app/webroot/css/style.css" media="screen, projection" />
Two things to note. In $html->css($path, $attributes), the first argument is the path from app/webroot/css. The second argument is html attributes.
Linking JavaScript libraries is very similar.
$jslibraries = array('prototype', 'scriptaculous', 'jquery');
This will link to prototype.js, scriptaculous.js and jquery.js respectively as long as there in app/webroot/js.
Put echo $javascript->link($jslibraries); into the head of your layout and you’re done. You have all three JavaScript libraries at your disposal.
Other good resources:
If you’re familiar with the Blueprint CSS framework, you already know it can make your life a lot easier. So how do you get it into your Wordpress theme? Luckily, Wordpress is designed to make your life easier too.
I’m assuming your know the basics of Wordpress Theme Development. That is, at the very least you need:
Put those files in a folder named after your theme. And put that folder in /wordpressroot/wp-content/themes/.
Once you’ve gotten that far, download the Blueprint CSS Framework and drop the “blueprint” folder from that download into your theme’s directory.
Finally, to include the new CSS files into your theme, just add this code to your header:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/blueprint/screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/blueprint/print.css" type="text/css" media="print">
<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/blueprint/ie.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection">
<![endif]-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />
Pay attention to the order. You want to make sure that href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" appears last in the list of style sheets. That’s your style.css where you can tailor the CSS for your specific design.
That’s it.
I have been so incredibly busy the last few months that aside for 140 character Twitter updates, I haven’t been able to keep this blog updated with my exploits.
If you are still paying attention, I was complaining about ACL. After several attempts, I gave up using the built-in ACL component in CakePHP and just decided to keep things simple, use the Auth component with role-based access control. Problem solved.
The development of the application has progressed smoothly since getting over that hurdle.
In the meantime, I’ve been setting up my own virtual server for hosting websites for my freelance clients. That has been a learning experience in itself. I’ll post more about that as I formally launch that service.
I’m also way behind on podcasts for the Minneapoliscast podcast. I hope to resume that at a modest pace this fall.
More later as all of my respective projects get updates including SVN info on my CakePHP app.
That is Access Control Lists. I’ve been developing with CakePHP this spring and summer and it was all going very well until I actually needed to control access to the application. It’s not even that CakePHP falls short here. There are apparently tons of built-in tools for managing access. They’re just poorly documented and the community is relatively new so no one has built a complete plug in. If you’re looking for a solution like I was, I’m afraid I’m not going to give you the best answer here. I did find something that works, so read on. Especially if you’re learning ACL or Modified Preorder Tree Traversal Algorithm (MPTTA) for the first time.
Disclosure: I’m not formally trained as a programmer/developer. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve taught myself. So there are definitely some silos in my knowledge as I’ve learned things on the basis of necessity. I have, however, been developing in PHP for over six years. So it’s not all that bad.
So the learning curve for implementing ACL has been relatively steep for me. First, I had to get my head around the concept. The big picture is easy. What we’re after is a tree of access with ‘admin’ at the root and everything else branching off from that with diminishing access. That’s not hard to conceptualize. What is hard is putting that into practice.
I messed around with this for a long time before stumbling upon this tutorial about the Modified Preorder Tree Traversal Algorithm. Stop now. Read it. Come back.
Now you should understand the concepts that drive CakePHP’s ACL. Unfortunately here is also where we depart from using CakePHP’s tools. At least until a decent plug-in comes along that allows you to manage Access Request Objects (ARO) and Access Control Objects (ACO) via a good, web-based interface.
After many attempts with various solutions that are currently avaliable, I finally settled on Authake.
Pros:
Cons:
If you are reading this in the not so distant future and someone had developed a plugin that has an admin area like Authake’s but drops into app/plugins like Jeff’s plugin, please, please let me know.
