All The Useful CakePHP Interview Questions & Answers

Q 1. What is CakePHP?
CakePHP is an  open-source 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.

Q 2. How to get current URL in CakePHP?
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);

Q 3. What is MVC in CakePHP?
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.

Q 4. What are Hooks in CakePHP?
CakePHP hooks are callback functions that are called before or after a model operation.We define these functions in our Model classes.

A list of some hooks or callback functions provided by CakePHP:

beforeFind
afterFind
beforeValidate
afterValidate
beforeSave
afterSave
beforeDelete
afterDelete
onError

Q 5. List some features of CakePHP framework.
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

Q 6. What is the name of CakePHP database configuration file?
database.php.default file is used for database configuration in CakePHP. It is located in /app/config/ directory of CakePHP

Q 7. What are sessions in PHP . How to read, write and delete session in 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');

Q 8. How to use Pagination in CakePHP?

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

A 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.";
}
?>

Q 9. List different type of Cache CakePHP Supports?
CakePHP supports Cache out of the box. 

Below is a list of Cache engines supported by CakePHP:

APCu
File Based
Memcached
Redis
Wincache
XCache

Q 10. What is Composer? How to create a CakePHP Project using Composer?
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

Q 11. What are components in CakePHP. List some commonly used CakePHP components?
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

Q 12. What is name of default function and controller of CakePHP which is called automatically?
In CakePHP Default controller is indexController.php and Default function is index.

Q 13. List Types of association supported by CakePHP.
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

Q 14. List minimum server requirements to install CakePHP.
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