Bake command

Generate factory classes from your existing schema. Recommended over hand-writing them.

Loading the plugin

In src/Application.php:

$this->addPlugin('CakephpFixtureFactories');

See the cookbook for how to load a plugin.

Usage

bin/cake bake fixture_factory -h

shows all options. Common patterns:

# One factory at a time
bin/cake bake fixture_factory Articles

# All models in your app
bin/cake bake fixture_factory -a

# Include association helpers (->hasAuthors(), ->forCountry(), …)
bin/cake bake fixture_factory Articles -m

# Bake into a plugin's namespace
bin/cake bake fixture_factory Articles -p MyPlugin

Options

Flag	Effect
-a	Bake every model in the app
-m	Add directional helpers based on associations (for…() for to-one, has…() for to-many)
--all-fields	Emit default values for every non-primary, non-foreign-key column — including nullable columns and columns with a DB default. Without the flag, bake only fills required (NOT NULL, no DB default) columns.
-p Plugin	Bake into a plugin's namespace
-h	Show all available options

--all-fields: include optional columns

By default, the baked definition() only emits values for columns the database would otherwise reject — required, no-default, non-FK columns. Optional columns and columns that the database already defaults are skipped to keep the factory minimal.

Pass --all-fields when you want a fully populated factory body up front:

bin/cake bake fixture_factory Articles --all-fields

Foreign-key columns remain excluded regardless of the flag, so the baked factory keeps pushing related rows through the association APIs (with() / for() / has()) instead of emitting raw integer FK values.

Columns managed by TimestampBehavior

Bake also skips columns that TimestampBehavior populates automatically on insert — by default created and modified, plus any extras a project configures on Model.beforeSave with 'new' or 'always'. Baking a random datetime there would dirty the entity, so the behavior would skip its own update and the fixture would ship a random timestamp instead of the test-run's "now". Skipping at bake time keeps the behavior in charge.

Detection is by class, so a renamed alias (addBehavior('AuditTimestamps', ['className' => 'Timestamp'])) is recognized. Fields configured 'existing' (only update on existing rows) or wired to non-Model.beforeSave events are NOT skipped — those don't fire on insert, so bake must still emit a value.

Trade-off for pure ->build() users: TimestampBehavior only fires on save; if you rely on ->build() (no persist) and expect the timestamp fields to be populated, override at the factory: ->setField('created', \Cake\I18n\DateTime::now()) or add an afterBuild callback.

Customizing the generated code

Two configuration keys influence what bake writes:

• defaultDataMap — map column types to generator method fragments, call fragments with arguments, or $generator->... calls.
• columnPatterns — map column-name regexes to generator method fragments, call fragments with arguments, or $generator->... calls.

Both let you teach bake what phone, zip, email, etc. should look like in your domain. See the Configuration Reference.

// config/app.php
'FixtureFactories' => [
    'columnPatterns' => [
        '/^phone/' => 'phoneNumber()',
        '/^zip/'   => 'postcode()',
    ],
],

After regenerating, fields named phone_* and zip_* will be filled with the matching generator method instead of a generic string.