cakephp-setup

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Console Commands ​

You can run any command from the application root with bin/cake [command].

Compact help command ​

The plugin provides an optional compact help command that replaces the core help with a more readable format, using bracket notation for subcommands.

Enable it in your configuration:

php
'Setup' => [
    'compactHelp' => true,
],

When enabled, bin/cake help displays commands in a compact format:

text
Available Commands:

 - bake [controller|model|template|...]
 - cache [clear|clear_all|list]
 - migrations [migrate|rollback|status|...]

Use bin/cake help -v for verbose output with descriptions and plugin grouping.

You can also filter by command prefix:

bash
bin/cake help bake

Application maintenance ​

CurrentConfig ​

These commands quickly show the current config, for both the database and the cache:

bash
bin/cake current_config display

You can also quickly view the phpinfo() output:

bash
bin/cake current_config phpinfo

Filter with grep

On Linux systems (or any container/VM environment), use grep to quickly filter the output. For example, to see only your Xdebug settings for CLI:

bash
bin/cake current_config phpinfo | grep xdebug

This is very useful and quicker than any other lookup on the CLI.

Database ​

Init ​

Initialize the database:

bash
bin/cake db init

Reset ​

Remove all content from the tables, excluding the phinx migration tables:

bash
bin/cake db reset

WARNING

Be careful — make sure you have a backup before doing this.

Wipe ​

Hard-reset the database, dropping all tables:

bash
bin/cake db wipe

WARNING

Be careful — make sure you have a backup before doing this.

Database integrity ​

Keys ​

Alerts you about possible non-unsigned integer (foreign) keys, in terms of data-integrity issues.

  • Provides migration-file content to be executed.
  • This is a prerequisite for constraints and other features that need the keys to be aligned.

Constraints ​

Alerts you about possible missing constraints, in terms of data-integrity issues.

  • Provides migration-file content to be executed.
  • Optionally relates a foreign key that is not set back to NULL when the related has* entity is removed. This is only relevant if the relation is not dependent => true.

Nulls ​

Checks for fields that might need to be nullable, or the opposite.

  • Converts NULL fields without a default value.

Bools ​

Checks all boolean field types — usually tinyint(1) — for a valid schema.

Since MySQL 8+ they can no longer be unsigned, or the length is lost (making them normal tinyint or enums). To avoid this, run this on a database older than v8 and then perform a safe migration toward 8+.

  • Converts any bool field to a signed one.

Ints ​

Integers in newer MySQL versions lose their length as part of the schema definition. To preserve this sometimes-important metadata, it can be written (and later reused) into the column comment as metadata.

  • Adds the length info to the comment as a prefix ([schema] length: x).

Database data validation ​

These commands help detect and fix invalid data in the database.

Dates ​

Check for invalid zero date/datetime values (0000-00-00 or 0000-00-00 00:00:00):

bash
bin/cake db_data dates

Options:

  • -f, --fix: Fix invalid dates by setting them to NULL.
  • -c, --connection: Database connection to use (default: default).
  • Use -v for verbose output, including the SQL fix statements.

You can also check a specific table:

bash
bin/cake db_data dates users

Enums ​

Check for invalid enum values against PHP BackedEnum definitions:

bash
bin/cake db_data enums

This command:

  • Validates values against PHP BackedEnum class definitions.
  • Detects MySQL ENUM columns and suggests migrating to VARCHAR plus a PHP BackedEnum.
  • Shows mismatches between the PHP and MySQL enum definitions.

Options:

  • -f, --fix: Fix invalid enum values by setting them to NULL.
  • -p, --plugin: Plugin to check.
  • -c, --connection: Database connection to use (default: default).
  • Use -v for verbose output, including the SQL fix statements.

You can also check a specific model:

bash
bin/cake db_data enums Users

Orphans ​

Check for orphaned foreign-key records (FK values pointing to non-existent parents):

bash
bin/cake db_data orphans

This is useful when constraints were not enforced historically, or after data migrations.

Options:

  • -f, --fix: Fix orphaned records by setting the FK to NULL.
  • -d, --delete: Delete orphaned records instead of nullifying (use with --fix).
  • -p, --plugin: Plugin to check.
  • -c, --connection: Database connection to use (default: default).
  • Use -v for verbose output, including the SQL statements.

You can also check a specific model:

bash
bin/cake db_data orphans Users

Backup: create and restore ​

Create ​

Dump a full database schema, including content, into a file in your backup folder. It uses mysqldump and is therefore the most performant option here.

Restore ​

Restore a dumped file into the database, overwriting the previous values there.

Other tools ​

CliTest ​

Lets you test certain features — such as routing — and how (or whether) they work in CLI:

bash
bin/cake cli_test

Depending on your domain it outputs something like:

text
Router::url('/'):
    /
Router::url(['controller' => 'test']):
    /test
Router::url('/', true):
    http://example.local/
Router::url(['controller' => 'test'], true):
    http://example.local/test

User ​

Lets you quickly add a new user to your users table, including a properly hashed password, so you can log in:

bash
bin/cake user create [user]

To update an existing user:

bash
bin/cake user update [user]

If you need to provide custom defaults, use a callback. Set it in your app.php:

php
    'UserCreate.callable' => function (User $user): User {
        // ...

        return $user;
    },

Reset ​

Lets you reset all emails or passwords. This is very useful when copying live data dumps into your local development environment. Afterward you can log in with a known password for any user — for example after resetting all passwords to a shared development value:

bash
bin/cake reset email

or

bash
bin/cake reset pwd

Tooling ​

Mailmap ​

Creates a .mailmap file from your current commit history. Requires Git as a tool:

bash
bin/cake mailmap generate

This is used, for example, in CakePHP to combine multiple accounts of the same user for git shortlog. Check the results with git shortlog -sne — it might require some manual adjustments afterward.

See also ​

Released under the MIT License.

Copyright Mark Scherer