How can I minimize the 'contain' queries in CakePHP?

Question

I have three models, Users, Comments and Pages.

Users has many Comments, and Comments belong to Pages.

All models use the containable behavior, and default to recursive -1.

If I call a find() query on Comments, with the contain request including the Page model's field, this correctly returns the results using a single query, automagically joining the Page table to the user.

If I call a similar query from the User model (containing Comment and Comment.Page), the result is a query to source the Comments, followed by a query per comment to source the relevant Page.

Is there a way to configure the models to maintain the JOIN optimisation? I assumed the belongsTo declaration on the related model (Comments) would follow through to the host model (Users).

UPDATE

I should clarify, my question used a simplified version of my actual case study. Although the minimal solution I require would include this initial Model hasMany Model belongsTo Model structure, I am also looking for the solution at one or more additional belongsTo Models down the chain (which, I though, would automagically use LEFT JOINs, as this would be feasible).

Answer 1

Hmm that's interesting. That's a sort of optimization that should be implemented in the core :)

At any rate, I think you could get the same results (perhaps formatted differently) by building the query a little differently:

$this->User->Comment->find('all', array(
  'conditions' => array(
    'Comment.user_id' => $userId
  ),
  'contain' => array(
    'User',
    'Page'
  )
));

By searching from the Comment model, it should use two left joins to join the data since they are both 1:1 relationships. Note: The results array may look a little different than from when you search from the User model.