Working with the Set class

One of the most debated decisions CakePHP has ever made was returning arrays as a result of a model find operation. While ORM purists may argue that each returned item should be an instance of a model class, arrays prove themselves very useful, fast, and flexible for manipulating characteristics that can be impossible to achieve with a pure object approach.

The Set class was introduced to give the developer even more power when dealing with array based data structures. With a simple method call, we can manipulate an array with ease, avoiding us the pain of having to build long and complex code blocks.

This recipe shows how to use some of the most useful methods this class provides, while introducing other available methods that may be useful under different scenarios.

Getting ready

To go through this recipe, we need some data to work with. Create the following tables, and populate them with data, by issuing these SQL statements:

CREATE TABLE `students`(
`id` INT...