CakePHP Interview Questions for Beginners

CakePHP is an  open-source free web framework written in PHP scripting Language for rapid web development. CakePHP follows the model–view–controller (MVC) approach and modeled after the concepts of Ruby on Rails, and distributed under the MIT License.

In Cakephp 2.x you can get current url in view by using $this->here; or Router::url( $this->here, true );

In Cakephp 3.x you can get current url in view by using $this->Url->build(null, true);

Also, Read Best Core PHP Interview Questions

CakePHP works on MVC structure.

MVC stands for the model view controller.MVC is not a design pattern, it is an architectural pattern that describes a way to structure our application and explains the responsibilities and interactions of each part in that structure:

Model: Wraps up data and logic of CakePHP.
View: Handles output and presentation to User.
Controller: Manipulates the data from models and generates or pass it to views.

image Source:https://developer.chrome.com/apps/app_frameworks

CakePHP hooks are callback functions that are called before or after a model operation.We define these functions in our Model classes.

Below is the list of some hooks or callback functions provided by CakePHP.

• beforeFind
• afterFind
• beforeValidate
• afterValidate
• beforeSave
• afterSave
• beforeDelete
• afterDelete
• onError

Top features of CakePHP framework

• MVC Architecture
• Zero configuration
• Inbuilt validation
• ACL Functionality and Security
• CRUD scaffolding
• Easily extendable with plug-ins
• Quick and flexible

You may also Read PHP 7 interview questions

database.php.default file is used for database configuration in CakePHP. It is located in /app/config/ directory of CakePHP

Session in PHP

PHP Sessions allows you to identify unique users across requests and store persistent data for specific users against a unique session ID. This can be used to persist state information between page requests. Session IDs are normally sent to the browser via session cookies and the ID is used to retrieve existing session data.

Reading, Writing and Deleting session in Cakephp 3.x

You can access the session data any place you have access to a request object. This means the session is accessible from:

• Controllers
• Views
• Helpers
• Cells
• Components

In addition to the basic session object, you can also use the Cake\View\Helper\SessionHelper to interact with the session in your views. A basic example of session usage would be:

$name = $this->request->session()->read('User.name');
// If you are accessing the session multiple times,
// you will probably want a local variable.
$session = $this->request->session();
$name = $session->read('User.name');

Reading, Writing and Deleting Session Data

Session::read($key) function is used to read specific session data in CakePHP.

Session::write($key, $value) function is used to write session data in CakePHP.

Session::delete($key) function is used to delete specific session data in CakePHP.

Sample Usage

//Reading a session
$session->read('Config.language');
//Writing a session
$session->write('Config.language', 'en');
//Deleting a session
$session->delete('Some.value');

Pagination in CakePHP

In CakePHP controller Pagination component is used to building paginated queries. In order to generate pagination links & buttons in view PaginatorHelper is used

Below are sample pagination usage code in CakePHP

Pagination in Controller

class PostsController extends AppController
{

    public $paginate = [
        'limit' => 25,
        'order' => [
            'Posts.id' => 'desc'
        ]
    ];

    public function initialize()
    {
        parent::initialize();
        $this->loadComponent('Paginator');
        $this->loadHelper('Paginator', ['templates' => 'MyPlugin.paginator-templates']);
    }

    public function display(){
      $this->set('posts', $this->paginate());
    }
}

Pagination in CakePHP Views

<?php

$paginator = $this->Paginator;
 
if($posts){
 
    //creating our table
    echo "<table>";
 
        // our table header, we can sort the data user the paginator sort() method!
        echo "<tr>";
         
            // in the sort method, there first parameter is the same as the column name in our table
            // the second parameter is the header label we want to display in the view
            echo "<th>" . $paginator->sort('id', 'ID') . "</th>";
            echo "<th>" . $paginator->sort('title', 'Title') . "</th>";
            echo "<th>" . $paginator->sort('published_on', 'Published on') . "</th>";
          
        echo "</tr>";
         
        // loop through the user's records
        foreach( $posts as $post ){
            echo "<tr>";
                echo "<td>{$post['Post']['id']} </td>";
                echo "<td>{$post['Post']['title']} </td>";
                echo "<td>{$post['Post']['published_on']} </td>";
               
            echo "</tr>";
        }
         
    echo "</table>";
 
    // pagination section
    echo "<div class='paging'>";
 
        // the 'first' page button
        echo $paginator->first("First");
         
        // 'prev' page button, 
        // we can check using the paginator hasPrev() method if there's a previous page
        // save with the 'next' page button
        if($paginator->hasPrev()){
            echo $paginator->prev("Prev");
        }
         
        // the 'number' page buttons
        echo $paginator->numbers(array('modulus' => 2));
         
        // for the 'next' button
        if($paginator->hasNext()){
            echo $paginator->next("Next");
        }
         
        // the 'last' page button
        echo $paginator->last("Last");
     
    echo "</div>";
     
}
 
// tell the user there's no records found
else{
    echo "No posts found.";
}
?>

CakePHP supports Cache out of the box. Below is the list of Cache engines supported by CakePHP.

• APCu
• File Based
• Memcached
• Redis
• Wincache
• XCache

Composer is a tool for managing project dependencies. You can create a CakePHP project using Composer by running below commands on terminal.

php composer.phar create-project --prefer-dist cakephp/app my_app_name

In CakePHP, components are packages of logic that are shared between controllers. CakePHP comes with a fantastic set of core components you can use to aid in various common tasks.Using component in your application makes your controller code cleaner and allows you to reuse code between different controllers.

Below are the list some commonly used CakePHP components

• Authentication
• Cookie
• Cross Site Request Forgery
• Flash
• Security
• Pagination
• Request Handling

In CakePHP Default controller is indexController.php and Default function is index.

There are four association supported by CakePHP they are:

• hasOne: One to One Relationship
• hasMany: One to many Relationship
• belongsTo: Many to One Relationship
• hasAndBelongsToMany (HABTM):Many to Many Relationship

Minimum server requirements to install CakePHP 3.8.5

• HTTP Server. For example Apache. Having mod_rewrite is preferred, but by no means required.
• PHP 5.6.0 or greater (including PHP 7.1).
• mbstring PHP extension installed and enabled
• intl PHP extension
• simplexml PHP extension