Class Behavior

Base class for behaviors.

Behaviors allow you to simulate mixins, and create reusable blocks of application logic, that can be reused across several models. Behaviors also provide a way to hook into model callbacks and augment their behavior.

Mixin methods

Behaviors can provide mixin like features by declaring public methods. These methods will be accessible on the tables the behavior has been added to.

function doSomething($arg1, $arg2) {
  // do something
}

Would be called like $table->doSomething($arg1, $arg2);.

Callback methods

Behaviors can listen to any events fired on a Table. By default CakePHP provides a number of lifecycle events your behaviors can listen to:

• beforeFind(EventInterface $event, Query $query, ArrayObject $options, boolean $primary) Fired before each find operation. By stopping the event and supplying a return value you can bypass the find operation entirely. Any changes done to the $query instance will be retained for the rest of the find. The $primary parameter indicates whether or not this is the root query, or an associated query.

• buildValidator(EventInterface $event, Validator $validator, string $name) Fired when the validator object identified by $name is being built. You can use this callback to add validation rules or add validation providers.

• buildRules(EventInterface $event, RulesChecker $rules) Fired when the rules checking object for the table is being built. You can use this callback to add more rules to the set.

• beforeRules(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options, $operation) Fired before an entity is validated using by a rules checker. By stopping this event, you can return the final value of the rules checking operation.

• afterRules(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options, bool $result, $operation) Fired after the rules have been checked on the entity. By stopping this event, you can return the final value of the rules checking operation.

• beforeSave(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options) Fired before each entity is saved. Stopping this event will abort the save operation. When the event is stopped the result of the event will be returned.

• afterSave(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options) Fired after an entity is saved.

• beforeDelete(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options) Fired before an entity is deleted. By stopping this event you will abort the delete operation.

• afterDelete(EventInterface $event, EntityInterface $entity, ArrayObject $options) Fired after an entity has been deleted.

In addition to the core events, behaviors can respond to any event fired from your Table classes including custom application specific ones.

You can set the priority of a behaviors callbacks by using the priority setting when attaching a behavior. This will set the priority for all the callbacks a behavior provides.

Finder methods

Behaviors can provide finder methods that hook into a Table's find() method. Custom finders are a great way to provide preset queries that relate to your behavior. For example a SluggableBehavior could provide a find('slugged') finder. Behavior finders are implemented the same as other finders. Any method starting with find will be setup as a finder. Your finder methods should expect the following arguments:

findSlugged(Query $query, array $options)