Cakephp: choose which data to save after login

Question

I cannot understand how to choose which user data to save after login. I have noticed that I can only change the recursivity of the model, but I cannot choose individual fields to use.

For example, normally Cakephp saves in session all user fields except the password, even the data that I don't need and I do not want stored. If I increase the recursion, Cakephp saves all the fields of related models.

Is there a way as for the "fields" parameter of the Model find method?

I know that after login I can recover the data that I miss and add them in session, merging to those already stored, but I want to avoid making another query and find a more elegant solution, if it exists.

Thanks.

Answer 1

As of Cake 2.2, you can add a contain key to your authentication options to pull related data. Since the contain key accepts a fields key, you can restrict the fields there:

public $components = array(
  'Auth' => array(
    'authenticate' => array(
      'Form' => array(
        'contain' => array(
          'Profile' => array(
            'fields' => array('name', 'birthdate')
          )
        )
      )
    )
  )
);

If you want to change the fields the user model searches for, you can extend the authentication object you're using. Generally the users table contains a minimal amount of information, so this isn't usually necessary.

However, I'll give an example anyway. We'll use the FormAuthenticate object here, and use most of the _findUser method code from the BaseAuthenticate class. This is the function that Cake's authentication system uses to identify the user.

App::uses('FormAuthenticate', 'Controller/Component/Auth');
class MyFormAuthenticate extends FormAuthenticate {

  // overrides BaseAuthenticate::_findUser()
  protected function _findUser($username, $password) {
    $userModel = $this->settings['userModel'];
    list($plugin, $model) = pluginSplit($userModel);
    $fields = $this->settings['fields'];

    $conditions = array(
      $model . '.' . $fields['username'] => $username,
      $model . '.' . $fields['password'] => $this->_password($password),
    );
    if (!empty($this->settings['scope'])) {
      $conditions = array_merge($conditions, $this->settings['scope']);
    }
    $result = ClassRegistry::init($userModel)->find('first', array(
      // below is the only line added
      'fields' => $this->settings['findFields'],
      'conditions' => $conditions,
      'recursive' => (int)$this->settings['recursive']
    ));
    if (empty($result) || empty($result[$model])) {
      return false;
    }
    unset($result[$model][$fields['password']]);
    return $result[$model];
  }
}

Then use that authentication and pass our new setting:

public $components = array(
  'Auth' => array(
    'authenticate' => array(
      'MyForm' => array(
        'findFields' => array('username', 'email'),
        'contain' => array(
          'Profile' => array(
            'fields' => array('name', 'birthdate')
          )
        )
      )
    )
  )
);