Installation

Check composer.json for supported PHP and CakePHP versions. This branch supports CakePHP 5.

composer require dereuromark/cakephp-ratings

In your existing Application::bootstrap(), after the parent call:

$this->addPlugin('Ratings');

Create the ratings table

The bundled migration creates ratings. If your application does not already use Migrations:

composer require cakephp/migrations

Load Migrations in your application's bootstrap if it is not already loaded:

$this->addPlugin('Migrations');

Run:

bin/cake migrations migrate -p Ratings

The table stores user_id, foreign_key, model, value and timestamps. Its unique index permits one rating per user, record and model.

The migration uses an integer user_id. Polymorphic.type changes only foreign_key, and must be configured before the initial migration. For UUID user IDs, custom table names or a different schema, create an application migration instead of running the bundled one. Ratings.table changes runtime table lookup; it does not rename the bundled migration's table.

Rated records

The first example assumes an existing posts table and route, plus users who can sign in. A rating float column stores the calculated result. Optional rating_sum float and rating_count integer columns enable cached totals. Initialize all three to zero and keep them out of user-submitted mass assignment; the behavior writes its calculated fields explicitly.

If these fields do not exist, add an application migration such as config/Migrations/20260101000000_AddRatingCacheToPosts.php:

<?php
use Migrations\BaseMigration;

class AddRatingCacheToPosts extends BaseMigration {
    public function change(): void {
        $this->table('posts')
            ->addColumn('rating', 'float', ['default' => 0, 'null' => false])
            ->addColumn('rating_sum', 'float', ['default' => 0, 'null' => false])
            ->addColumn('rating_count', 'integer', ['default' => 0, 'null' => false])
            ->update();
    }
}

Use a filename timestamp later than your existing migrations, then run bin/cake migrations migrate.

For an existing installation with vote rows, backfill rating_sum and rating_count before enabling cached totals. Group ratings by model and foreign_key, use SUM(value) and COUNT(*), and write the matching rated records' totals and average. Adding zero-filled cache fields to existing votes makes the next calculation incorrect; zero is appropriate only for records with no votes.