Get user information from Model in CakePHP

Question

I've just learnt CakePHP and I want a user to input their old password when the edit their own information.

In my model User.php

'password_old' => array(
                'match_old_password' => array(
                    'rule' => 'matchOldPassword',
                    'message' => 'Wrong password'
                ),
                'minlength' => array(
                    'rule'    => array('minLength', '8'),
                    'message' => 'Minimum 8 characters long'
                )
            )

I create a function matchOldPassword

public function matchOldPassword(){
        if($this->data['User']['password_old']==$current_password){
            return true;
        }
        return false;
}

My question is, how can I get value of current user's password in the Model? I use CakePHP 2.1.

Answer 1

You can perform database queries from a model just like you would in your controllers.

So in your User model you could call:

$this->find('first', array('conditions' => array('User.id' => $userId)));

or

$this->read(null, $userId);

Of course you'll have to pass the current user id from the controller to the model method. If you're using the Auth component provided by Cake you can call $this->Auth->user('id') to retrieve the id of the user that's currently logged in (if that's what you mean by "current user"). $this->Auth->user() is a controller method so it can't be used in models. Your setup would look roughly like this:

UserModel method:

public function getCurrentUserPassword($userId) {
  $password = '';
  $this->recursive = -1;
  $password = $this->read('password', $userId);
  return $password;
}

UsersController call:

$userId = $this->Auth->user('id');
$this->User->getCurrentUserPassword($userId);