How To Migrate CakePHP 1.x To 2.x

Today, we will focus on what we need to do to get CakePHP 1.3 application upgraded to CakePHP 2.2.3-the latest official stable release

Installation

This is pretty straight forward, same as CakePHP 1.3 version.
Download and unzip the CakePHP 2.2.3 and follow these below-mentioned instructions.

Configuration

• core.php
• Make sure to copy the security.salt and Security.cipher_seed from your old core.php
• Take notice of how errors, sessions and caching have changed.
• database.php
• There is a minor change on this file,
• CakePHP 1.3: ‘driver’ => ‘mysqli’
• CakePHP 2.2.3: ‘datasource’ => ‘Database/Mysql’
• routes.php
• Don’t overwrite this file with your older one.
• You can place your custom routes before or after CakePlugin::routes()
• bootstrap.php
• Copy all functions, constants and other code from your old bootstrap into the new one.

Folder Structure

• The cake folder is now inside lib folder. There is nothing to do with this.
• Files and folders are now CamelCased instead of lower_underscored
• Example: The “users” folder inside the View becomes “Users”
• The controller files are now UsersController.php instead of users_controller.php
• project_user_controller.php becomes “ProjectUsersController.php”
• The model files are now User.php instead of user.php
• project_user.php model becomes “ProjectUser.php”
• The components files are now FormatComponent.php instead of format.php
• The helpers files are now DatetimeHelper.php instead of datetime.php

Moved APP files

• The parent app_classes have been moved and renamed as well.

• Instead of app_controller.php, app_model.php, and app_helper.php now become Controller/AppController.php, Model/AppModel.php, and View/Helper/AppHelper.php.

Auth Component and Login

• Auth now supports multiple authorization adapters that can all be used together

• Cake 1.3.x was automatically checking if user has correctly entered username/password inside your login () method of users_controller but in cake 2.x we need to manually call $this->Auth->login () this returns Boolean value based on successful login or failure.

If you are using “email” as your login field name
CakePHP 1.3: (inside AppController beforeFilter)

$this->Auth->fields = array('username' => 'email', 'password' => 'passw

CakePHP 2.2.3: (inside AppController beforeFilter)

$this->Auth->authenticate = array('Form' => array('fields' => array('username' => 'email', 'password' => 'password')));

Auth Login

CakePHP 2.2.3: (inside UsersController login function)

if (!empty($this->request->data)) {
if ($this->Auth->login()) {
$this->redirect($this->Auth->redirect());
} else {
//$this->Session->setFlash('Your Email or Password was incorrect.');
}
}

CakePHP 2.x auth automatically hashes the password on login but not on save.

We can add a beforeSave() method on the User model to hash the password.

public function beforeSave($options = array())
{
$this->data['User']['password'] = AuthComponent::password($this->data['User']['password']); return true;
}

Request Data

• CakePHP 2.0 has done some request related changes.
• The Request Object does not have “form” element any longer.
• You will need to replace $this->params[‘form’] with $this->request[‘data’] or $this->request->data.
• $this->data needs to be replaced with $this->request->data
• So, now we can use $this->request->data on both form submit and AJAX post.
• Now, we need to check !empty($this->request->data) instead of “!empty($this->data)” while saving a form.

Views Changes

• Use $this->Html->link() instead of $html->link()
• Use $this->Form-> instead of $form->
• Use $this->Session-> instead of $session->
• Use $this->Paginator-> intead of $paginator ->
• For JavaScript inclusion use $this->Html->script(“”) instead of $javascript->link()

Moved Email Elements

• Email elements have been moved from views/elements to View/Emails.

Helpers

• The Ajax, Javascript, and XML helpers have been removed. You will need to replace these helper calls with appropriate alternatives

• Helpers can no longer be called with “$helper->function()”. You need to update your helper calls to use $this->Helper->function()

• If you are loading or importing your helpers inside another custom helper or component,

• $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper() becomes $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper($this->_View) or $myhelper = new DatetimeHelper(new View(null))

Components

• All component files should be extended by Component Class instead of Object

DB and Code Caution

• There is no Enum Support in cakephp2.x as sql server doesnt have similar datatype.

• You can change enum to tinyint(2)

• In cake 1.3 used tinyint(1) for is_active database fields.

• While retrieveing from database it returns 0/1

• But, cakePHP2.x no longer returns as 0. This will return bool(true) /bool(false)

• Boolean column values will be casted to php native boolean type automatically.

__() Function and Pagination

• The __() function no longer has the option to echo. It always returns

• Change the Pagination code,

CakePHP 1.3:

echo $this->Paginator->counter(array( 'format' => __('Page %page% of %pages%, showing %current% records out of %count% total, starting on record %start%, ending on %end%'', true)));

CakePHP 2.2.3:

echo $this->Paginator->counter(array( 'format' => __('Page %page% of %pages%, showing %current% records out of %count% total, starting on record %start%, ending on %end%'')));