• CakePHP 2.x
• PHP 5.3+

• Put StackableFinder directory into your plugin directory. You can also install via Composer.
• Enable StackableFinder plugin in your app/Config/bootstrap.php file.
• Enable StackableFinder.StackableFinder behavior in your model.

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->find('all', ['conditions' => ['Article.created >=' => '2015-01-01']])
	->findAllByUserId(1) // Magic finder
	->find('published') // Custom finder
	->find('list')
	->exec();

You can start stacking finders by calling q(), and you can execute the query and get the resutls by calling exec().

Note that q() method returns an instance of StackableFinder. The object also has find() method like a Model - so you can use fluent interface, but it is not a sub-class of Model.

So you cannot call any other methods implemented by Model.

$this->Article->q()->read(); // Error 

Instead, you can use where() or some other 3.x compatible methods for building queries.

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->select(['Article.id', 'Article.title'])
	->contain('Author')
	->where(['Article.user_id' => 1])
	->order(['Article.id' => 'DESC'])
	->limit(10)
	->offset(0)
	->exec();

You can make subqueries like the following:

$q = $this->User->q()->select('id');

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->where([
		'user_id IN ?' => [$q]
	])
	->exec();

You will see that IN ? appears after the field name in the left-hand side, and you will see also that $q appears inside an [] in the right-hand side.

It is not compatible with 3.x but it is nessecary at this time in 2.x.

As mentioned above, you can do it by calling exec() but there are some other ways to get the results of the query.

You can iterate the StackableFinder object directly.

$q = $this->Article->q()->find('list');
foreach ($q as $id => $title) {
	// ...
}

Or you can use first() or count() instead of exec().

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->find('published')
	->first();

This is same as the following:

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->find('published')
	->find('first')
	->exec();

But, note that stacking find('first') or first() after find('list') doesn't work. Because _findFirst() doen't returns the first result actually. That returns the element with index 0.

So this is a bad example:

$articles = $this->Article->q()
	->find('list')
	->first();

You will get an empty array instead of the first item of the list.

Also note that stacking find('count') or count() after find('list') doesn't work. Because _findCount() expects an array like [['Model' => ['count' => N ]]], but _findList changes the array before it get called.

You can override these methods in your model to change the behaviors, if necessary.