Rails-like Flash messages in CakePHP

Another thing lacking in CakePHP is it’s flash messaging mechanism. Right out of the box the flash() method in CakePHP displays your message on a stark page and then redirects to the page you want to go to. The nice thing about Ruby on Rails is that adding a flash message actually redirects you to your destination and then displays the message on that page. It’s much nicer, in my opinion.

Here’s a quick and easy way to get CakePHP’s flash() to act like Rails’ flash();

In app_controller.php put this method:


function flash($msg,$to){
  $this->Session->setFlash($msg);
  $this->redirect($to);
  exit;
}

And in your layout add:

 $session->flash();

Because we’re overriding the controller flash() method in app_controller.php you dont have to go and change any of your existing flash() calls.

~~Please view this article on the cake Bakery. it has this same methodology but adds some javascript highlighing and other stuff.~~ This article has been removed from the cake bakery.

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Published:: 03.17.07 / 10am

Category:: CakePHP

Tags:: CakePHP, phpThumb, thumbnail

Ryan February 4, 2008

Thanks! I was sick of those weird interstitial message pages. Who on earth decided that was a good idea?

Dave May 13, 2008

Maybe I’m missing something but I’ve got /app/app_controller.php defined as:

class AppController extends Controller {

}

and in my layout, I’ve got flash(); ?> but it isn’t doing anything different… still showing that goofy page in the middle…. any ideas of what could be going wrong?

Nate Constant May 13, 2008

Dave, how are you calling the flash method in your controllers? it should look like this: $this->flash(’this is my message’,'/path’);

Also, in your layout, make sure you have $session->flash(); (not just flash(); )

In my controller, I’ve got, $this->flash('Your post has been updated.', '/posts');. In my layout, ?php $session->flash(); ?.

I’m using the 1.2.0.6311 beta … in case that might make a difference.

Nate Constant May 14, 2008

Dave, let\’s do some debugging. I would suggest putting in a debug statement into the newly created flash() method. something like:

pr(\’HERE\’); exit;

This is just to make sure the new method is getting called.

Aran June 5, 2008

I like this a lot. I am very curious to know why they took this article out of the Bakery?

Nate Constant June 5, 2008

Aran, that’s a great question… I have no idea. Maybe it became old?? or maybe someone wrote something similar and this was not as relevant.

Luke September 1, 2008

thanks for this - very helpful

Bryan January 8, 2009

Great stuff. This is exactly how core should operate out of the box.

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Rails-like Flash messages in CakePHP

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