Advice on how to define this model/relationship in cakephp

Question

I'm brand new to MVC frameworks and I'm having some issues wrapping my head around how exactly this would be defined in the model.

`UserA` purposes `Offer1`
`UserB` sees and accepts `Offer1`
`Offer` is now complete

I originally had the two sets of users in different tables but that meant a lot of extra work when I think there is probably a simpler way.

Answer 1

You'll have three tables. If you're following CakePHP table naming conventions, you'll probably call them users, offers_users and offers. In this case, you're probably looking to use a hasAndBelongsToMany relationship (HABTM). Basic example

class User extends AppModel {
    public $hasAndBelongsToMany = array(
        'Offer' =>
            array(
                'className' => 'Offer',
                'joinTable' => 'offers_users',
                'foreignKey' => 'user_id',
                'associationForeignKey' => 'offer_id',
                'unique' => false,
                'conditions' => '',
                'fields' => '',
                'order' => '',
                'limit' => '',
                'offset' => '',
                'finderQuery' => '',
                'with' => ''
            )
    );
}