Unable to create relations to self/static, nesting issue

[steadweb]

I've tried relating a model to itself by having parent => child relations, for example:

• Parent Category has many Child Categories
• Child Categories belongs to a Parent Category

A category is a category, not a parent_category or child_category, or they shouldn't be. Below is my relation within my category_model:

public $belongs_to  = array( 
    'parent' => array( 'model' => 'category_model', 'primary_key' => 'parent_category' ), 
);  

The following errors are thrown:

Message: Undefined index: parent_category

Fatal error: Maximum function nesting level of '100' reached, aborting!

Why it can't find the parent_category field I can't understand, the nesting issue would be down to it being stuck in a loop.

What's the best way of achieving this without creating a new model and extending the base (Category_Model / MY_Model) model?

[andrewturner]

Although an old issue it may be useful for others, I have a similar setup, using a one:many relationship though ($has_many) and only selecting the records where parent is null - this way a recursive tree can be built. It's a bit messy wih foreach loops, but it works none the less for the moment.

I had to edit the base model and remove

$this->_with = array();

from the get_all() function, around about line 231.

My tree now fully generates.

I'm working with a small-ish sized dataset of categories (about 500), and a few thousand products, and haven't had any issues with get_all(), unless there is another problem I've missed.

Hope this helps!