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One CakePHP Project Per Day

Written by Rochamarcelo on July 29, 2021
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The whole team here at CakeDC are big supporters and contributors of the CakePHP community. For this month, I decided to do “one CakePHP project per day” to share with the community. 

Here are some of my projects so far:

Project 01 - Notes App

A one page note application using CakePHP 4 and Bootstrap 5. This project is  a good starting point to learn the framework.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-project-a-day-challenge-01-notes

 

Project 02 - Contact List

An application to manage contacts - you are able to list, add, edit and delete contacts, upload contact avatar images or use avatar images from gravatar.com . It was built using CakePHP 4, plugin friendsofcake/search, plugin josegonzalez/cakephp-upload, Gravatar, and Bootstrap 5. 

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-project-a-day-challenge-02-contact-list

 

Project 03 - Recipe Box

An application to manage recipes, using CakePHP 4,  CouchDB and Bootstrap 5. This one is a good starting point to learn to use CouchDB with CakePHP, including how to list, add and edit recipes (documents).

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-03-recipe-box

 

Project 04 - Service Plan with Exchange rate

An application to list services and apply exchange rate using the api https://exchangeratesapi.io/documentation/ and CakePHP 4. In this one you see the custom namespace WebService to handle logic related to api as client.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-04-service-plans-ex-rate

 

Project 05 - Polls

A fun poll app, using the awesome Bulma CSS Framework and CakePHP 4. A good example of model association and the CounterCache Behavior.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-05-polls-emmy

 

Project 06 - Movie Theater Schedule

An application to see which movies are in the theaters and which hours by screen each day of the week. A good example of complex queries, model associations and seed data.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-06-movie-theater-schedule

 

Project 07 - Podcast Finder

An application to help easily find podcasts and download episodes. In the source code you’ll find how to use the itunes api,  a structure to handle Model actions (that I think is a good option to make your models cleaner), and a way to parse podcasts feed (XML); example usage of dependency injection. The application was built with CakePHP 4 and Bulma CSS Framework.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-07-podcast-finder

 

Project 08 - Url Shortener

An application to create short urls - a good example of how to create custom routes and use custom primary key types for a model. The application was built with CakePHP 4.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-08-url-shortener

 

Project 09 - Quiz

Users can list quizzes, create quizzes and answer at any time. A good example of how to use MongoDB with CakePHP 4 with a base structure for Collection classes. 

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-09-quiz

 

Project 10 - File Transfer

An application to easily send files to anyone, create an account, upload the file and inform the person email to send to. Built with CakePHP 4, plugin CakeDC/Users,  plugin Josegonzalez/Upload,  plugin friendsofcake/bootstrap-ui, SMTP and Bootstrap. A good example to see the usage of these plugins.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-10-file-transfer

 

Project 11 - Tasks

A one page application for  users to manage their tasks. The user can create and remove decks, create and complete tasks, and list tasks grouped by decks. Built with CakePHP 4, plugin CakeDC/Users and Bootstrap 5

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-11-tasks

 

Project 12 - Blog

A blog website with blog posts and tags management, WYSIWYG editor, blog search, tags filtering. Built with CakePHP 4, CakeDC/Users plugin, friendsofcake/bootstrap-ui, Muffin/Slug, friendsofcake/search and Bootstrap 4 . A good example of usage of custom routes, route prefix, finders and multiple plugins.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-12-blog

 

Project 13 - Olympic Medal Count

Perfect time for this project, right?! An application to display olympic medal count by country and sports. The source code uses CouterCache behavior and aggregated query. Built with CakePHP 4 and Bootstrap 5.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-13-olympic-medal-count
 

Project 14 - Smart Home Dashboard

An awesome dashboard to manage smart devices using MQTT Messaging, CakePHP 4, CakeDC/Users plugin, php-mqtt/client (testing with Mosquitto Broker) and Bootstrap 5. The application is able to publish messages to change device status and subscribe for status changes.

Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-14-smart-home-dashboard-mqtt 

 

I hope that this initiative will somehow inspire others to put their Cake skills to work, and share their projects with the community. If you’d like to see my future projects and posts, you can follow me on Twitter, and I will share them all there!

https://twitter.com/mrcodex

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Well bakers… another advent calendar is coming to an end. I hope you enjoyed all of the topics covered each day. We are also closing the year with so much gratitude.    2025 was the 20th year of CakePHP, can you believe it? We had an amazing year with our team, the community and the CakePHP core. It was great connecting with those who attended CakeFest in Madrid, and we hope to have the opportunity to see more of you in 2026.    I cannot let the year end without getting a little sentimental. There is no better way to say it… THANK YOU. Thank you to the team who worked so hard, the core team that keeps pumping out releases, and most of all … thank you to our clients that trust us with their projects. CakeDC is successful because of the strong relationships we build with our network, and we hope to continue working with all of you for many years.    There are a lot of great things still to come in year 21! Could 2026 will be bringing us CakePHP 6?! Considering 21 is the legal drinking age in the US, maybe CakePHP 6 should be beer cake? Delicious. Stay tuned to find out.    Before I go, I am leaving you with something special. A note from Larry!   As we close out this year, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Twenty years ago, CakePHP started as a simple idea shared by a few of us who wanted to make building on the web easier and more enjoyable. Seeing how far it has come, and more importantly, seeing how many lives and careers it has impacted, is something I never take for granted. I am deeply grateful for our team, the core contributors, the community, and our clients who continue to believe in what we do. You are the reason CakePHP and CakeDC are still here, still growing, and still relevant after two decades. Here is to what we have built together, and to what is still ahead. Thank you for being part of this journey. Larry

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Pagination of multiple queries in CakePHP

Pagination of multiple queries in CakePHP

A less typical use case for pagination in an appication is the need to paginate multiples queries. In CakePHP you can achieve this with pagination scopes.

Users list

Lest use as an example a simple users list. // src/Controller/UsersController.php class UsersController extends AppController { protected array $paginate = [ 'limit' => 25, ]; public function index() { // Default model pagination $this->set('users', $this->paginate($this->Users)); } } // templates/Users/index.php <h2><?= __('Users list') ?>/h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('name', __('Name')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('email', __('Email')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('active', __('Active')) ?></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <?php foreach ($users as $user): ?> <tr> <td><?= h($user->name) ?></td> <td><?= h($user->email) ?></td> <td><?= $user->active ? 'Yes' : 'No' ?></td> </tr> <?php endforeach; ?> </tbody> </table> <?= $this->Paginator->counter() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->prev('« Previous') ?> <?= $this->Paginator->numbers() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->next('Next »') ?>

Pagination of multiple queries

Now, we want to display two paginated tables, one with the active users and the other with the inactive ones. // src/Controller/UsersController.php class UsersController extends AppController { protected array $paginate = [ 'Users' => [ 'scope' => 'active_users', 'limit' => 25, ], 'InactiveUsers' => [ 'scope' => 'inactive_users', 'limit' => 10, ], ]; public function index() { $activeUsers = $this->paginate( $this->Users->find()->where(['active' => true]), [scope: 'active_users'] ); // Load an additional table object with the custom alias set in the paginate property $inactiveUsersTable = $this->fetchTable('InactiveUsers', [ 'className' => \App\Model\Table\UsersTable::class, 'table' => 'users', 'entityClass' => 'App\Model\Entity\User', ]); $inactiveUsers = $this->paginate( $inactiveUsersTable->find()->where(['active' => false]), [scope: 'inactive_users'] ); $this->set(compact('users', 'inactiveUsers')); } } // templates/Users/index.php <?php // call `setPaginated` first with the results to be displayed next, so the paginator use the correct scope for the links $this->Paginator->setPaginated($users); ?> <h2><?= __('Active Users') ?>/h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('name', __('Name')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('email', __('Email')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('active', __('Active')) ?></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <?php foreach ($users as $user): ?> <tr> <td><?= h($user->name) ?></td> <td><?= h($user->email) ?></td> <td><?= $user->active ? 'Yes' : 'No' ?></td> </tr> <?php endforeach; ?> </tbody> </table> <?= $this->Paginator->counter() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->prev('« Previous') ?> <?= $this->Paginator->numbers() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->next('Next »') ?> <?php // call `setPaginated` first with the results to be displayed next, so the paginator use the correct scope for the links $this->Paginator->setPaginated($inactiveUsers); ?> <h2><?= __('Inactive Users') ?>/h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('name', __('Name')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('email', __('Email')) ?></th> <th><?= $this->Paginator->sort('active', __('Active')) ?></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <?php foreach ($inactiveUsers as $inactiveUser): ?> <tr> <td><?= h($inactiveUser->name) ?></td> <td><?= h($inactiveUser->email) ?></td> <td><?= $inactiveUser->active ? 'Yes' : 'No' ?></td> </tr> <?php endforeach; ?> </tbody> </table> <?= $this->Paginator->counter() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->prev('« Previous') ?> <?= $this->Paginator->numbers() ?> <?= $this->Paginator->next('Next »') ?> And with this you have two paginated tables in the same request.

Written by Rperez on December 23, 2025

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Clean DI in CakePHP 5.3: Say Goodbye to fetchTable()

This article is part of the CakeDC Advent Calendar 2025 (December 23rd, 2025)

Introduction: The Death of the "Hidden" Dependency

For years, accessing data in CakePHP meant "grabbing" it from the global state. Whether using TableRegistry::getTableLocator()->get() or the LocatorAwareTrait’s $this->fetchTable(), your classes reached out to a locator to find what they needed. While convenient, this created hidden dependencies. A class constructor might look empty, despite the class being secretly reliant on multiple database tables. This made unit testing cumbersome, forcing you to stub the global TableLocator just to inject a mock. CakePHP 5.3 changes the game with Inversion of Control. With the framework currently in its Release Candidate (RC) stage and a stable release expected soon, now is the perfect time to explore these architectural improvements. By using the new TableContainer as a delegate for your PSR-11 container, tables can now be automatically injected directly into your constructors. This shift to explicit dependencies makes your code cleaner, fully type-hinted, and ready for modern testing standards. The Old Way (Hidden Dependency): public function execute() { $users = $this->fetchTable('Users'); // Where did this come from? } The 5.3 Way (Explicit Dependency): public function __construct(protected UsersTable $users) {} public function execute() { $this->users->find(); // Explicit and testable. }

Enabling the Delegate

Open src/Application.php and update the services() method by delegating table resolution to the TableContainer. // src/Application.php use Cake\ORM\TableContainer; public function services(ContainerInterface $container): void { // Register the TableContainer as a delegate $container->delegate(new TableContainer()); }

How it works under the hood

When you type-hint a class ending in Table (e.g., UsersTable), the main PSR-11 container doesn't initially know how to instantiate it. Because you've registered a delegate, it passes the request to the TableContainer, which then:
  1. Validates: It verifies the class name and ensures it is a subclass of \Cake\ORM\Table.
  2. Locates: It uses the TableLocator to fetch the correct instance (handling all the usual CakePHP ORM configuration behind the scenes).
  3. Resolves: It returns the fully configured Table object back to the main container to be injected.
Note: The naming convention is strict. The TableContainer specifically looks for the Table suffix. If you have a custom class that extends the base Table class but is named UsersRepository, the delegate will skip it, and the container will fail to resolve the dependency.

Practical Example: Cleaner Services

Now, your domain services no longer need to know about the LocatorAwareTrait. They simply ask for what they need. namespace App\Service; use App\Model\Table\UsersTable; class UserManagerService { // No more TableRegistry::get() or $this->fetchTable() public function __construct( protected UsersTable $users ) {} public function activateUser(int $id): void { $user = $this->users->get($id); // ... logic } } Next, open src/Application.php and update the services() method by delegating table resolution to the TableContainer. // src/Application.php use App\Model\Table\UsersTable; use App\Service\UserManagerService; use Cake\ORM\TableContainer; public function services(ContainerInterface $container): void { // Register the TableContainer as a delegate $container->delegate(new TableContainer()); // Register your service with the table as constructor argument $container ->add(UserManagerService::class) ->addArgument(UsersTable::class); }

Why this is a game changer for Testing

Because the table is injected via the constructor, you can now swap it for a mock effortlessly in your test suite without touching the global state of the application. $mockUsers = $this->createMock(UsersTable::class); $service = new UserManagerService($mockUsers); // Pure injection!

Conclusion: Small Change, Big Impact

At first glance, adding a single line to your Application::services() method might seem like a minor update. However, TableContainer represents a significant shift in how we approach CakePHP architecture. By delegating table resolution to the container, we gain:
  • True Type-Safety: Your IDE and static analysis tools now recognize the exact Table class being used. This is a massive win for PHPStan users—no more "Call to an undefined method" errors or messy @var docblock workarounds just to prove to your CI that a method exists.
  • Zero-Effort Mocking: Testing a service no longer requires manipulating the global TableRegistry state. Simply pass a mock object into the constructor and move on.
  • Standardization: Your CakePHP code now aligns with modern PHP practices found in any PSR-compliant ecosystem, making your application more maintainable and easier for new developers to understand.
If you plan to upgrade to CakePHP 5.3 upon its release, this is one of the easiest wins for your codebase. It’s time to stop fetching your tables and start receiving them. This article is part of the CakeDC Advent Calendar 2025 (December 23rd, 2025)

Written by Arusinowski on December 23, 2025

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