> You have normalised your tables to a HABTM relationship, when what you
> seem to be after is a hasMany/belongsTo relationship.
>     Post belongsTo Category
>     Category hasMany Post

> When that is done, the dropdown can be automatically generated for you
> in your Post views using:
>     <?php echo $form->input('Category'); ?>

> On Nov 7, 6:52 am, "supergee...@gmail.com" <cda...@rvfinancing.com>
> wrote:

> > I'm new to cakePhp (and database design...I've been lazy over the
> > years and want to learn the "right" way to do things) and have a
> > question about saving the contents of a form that has a drop down
> > field.

> > Here are the tables that I have setup in my database:

> > Table 1: posts (contains id,title,description)

> > Table 2: categories (contains id,category_name)

> > Table 3: categories_posts (contains 2 foreign keys:
> > category_id,post_id)

> > I have 3 fields in the form I'm building

> > Field 1 (Category): Drop down field containing a list of categories.
> > The category id is the value and the category name is shown on the
> > drop down.

> > Field 2 (Title): text field

> > Field 3 (Description): textarea field

> > I'm having trouble figuring out how to save the Title and Description
> > fields to one database table, and save the category id and post id to
> > an assocation table, called categories_posts.

> > I have tried everything I can find an example of, and nothing has
> > seemed to work. I'm also not really sure if I need to use the save or
> > saveAll method.

> > In the past, I would have just saved the category name to the post
> > data table and been done with it, but I would like to at least attempt
> > to normalize my database (which is really foreign to me at this
> > point...I understand the basic idea but that's about it at this
> > point).

> > Can someone please point me in the right direction? If I need to
> > further explain myself, please let me know. Thank you.

> You have normalised your tables to a HABTM relationship, when what you
> seem to be after is a hasMany/belongsTo relationship.
>     Post belongsTo Category
>     Category hasMany Post

> When that is done, the dropdown can be automatically generated for you
> in your Post views using:
>     <?php echo $form->input('Category'); ?>

> On Nov 7, 6:52 am, "supergee...@gmail.com" <cda...@rvfinancing.com>
> wrote:

> > I'm new to cakePhp (and database design...I've been lazy over the
> > years and want to learn the "right" way to do things) and have a
> > question about saving the contents of a form that has a drop down
> > field.

> > Here are the tables that I have setup in my database:

> > Table 1: posts (contains id,title,description)

> > Table 2: categories (contains id,category_name)

> > Table 3: categories_posts (contains 2 foreign keys:
> > category_id,post_id)

> > I have 3 fields in the form I'm building

> > Field 1 (Category): Drop down field containing a list of categories.
> > The category id is the value and the category name is shown on the
> > drop down.

> > Field 2 (Title): text field

> > Field 3 (Description): textarea field

> > I'm having trouble figuring out how to save the Title and Description
> > fields to one database table, and save the category id and post id to
> > an assocation table, called categories_posts.

> > I have tried everything I can find an example of, and nothing has
> > seemed to work. I'm also not really sure if I need to use the save or
> > saveAll method.

> > In the past, I would have just saved the category name to the post
> > data table and been done with it, but I would like to at least attempt
> > to normalize my database (which is really foreign to me at this
> > point...I understand the basic idea but that's about it at this
> > point).

> > Can someone please point me in the right direction? If I need to
> > further explain myself, please let me know. Thank you.