First you are reading the docs with a small flaw. In the docs you are shown:
$order = Order::first();
# direct access to users
print_r($order->users); # will print an array of User object
Which you are already doing via Contact::find(1234)->prefs
. Let me boil it down a bit
$contact = Contact::find(1234);
# direct access to prefs
print_r($contact->prefs); # will print an array of ContactPref object
Second, what you actually want is undefined. What should Contact::find(1234)->preference
actually do? Return the preference of the first ContactPref? Return an array of Preference objects?
I feel like offering both:
<?php
class Contact extends ActiveRecord\Model {
static $primary_key = 'contactID';
static $has_many = array(
array(
'prefs',
'foreign_key' => 'contactid',
'primary_key' => 'contactid',
'class_name' => 'ContactPref'
),
array(
'preferences',
'foreign_key' => 'prefid',
'primary_key' => 'prefid',
'through' => 'prefs',
'class_name' => 'Preference'
)
);
public function get_preference() {
return isset($this->prefs[0])
? $this->prefs[0]->preference
: null
;
}
public function get_preferences() {
$preference=array();
foreach($this->prefs as $pref) {
$preference[]=$pref;
}
return $preference;
}
}
Let me explain a little bit what I have done. The ActiveRecord\Model class has a __get($name) function that looks for another function called get_$name, where $name in your case is preference (for the first result) and preference (for the entire collection). This means you can do Contact::find(1234)->preference
which would be the same as doing Contact::find(1234)->prefs[0]->preference
(but safer, due to the check) and Contact::find(1234)->preferences
to get the entire collection of preferences.
This can be made better or optimized in numerous ways, so please don't take it as it is, but do try and adapt it to your specific situation. For example you can either use the id of the preference as an index in the array or either not force a load of more data from ContactPrefs than the ones you are going to use and try a more intricate query to get the preference objects that you specifically need.
If I find a better implementation by getting through to work in the relationship definition, I'll return. But seeing the Unit Tests for active record, I'm skeptical.