How do I use the email component from a model in CakePHP?

Question

I have a very simple model. I want to add a send email routine to on of the methods for the model:

$this->Email->delivery = 'smtp';
$this->Email->template = 'default';
$this->Email->sendAs = 'text';     
$this->Email->from    = 'email';
$this->Email->to      = 'email';
$this->Email->subject = 'Error';

I've tried putting

App::import('Component', 'Email');

at the top, to no avail. The error I get is:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::send() in E:\xampp\htdocs8080\app\models\debug.php on line 23

Any ideas?

I'm running CakePHP 1.2

Answer 1

even if it is not best practice, you actually can use the EmailComponent in a model, but you need to instanciate it (in the Models there is no automatic Component loading) and you need to pass it a controller. The EmailComponent relies on the Controller because of the connection it needs to the view, for rendering email templates and layouts.

With a method like this in your model

function sendEmail(&$controller) {
    App::import('Component', 'Email');
    $email = new EmailComponent();
    $email->startup($controller);
}

You can use it in your Controller like this:

$this->Model->sendEmail($this);

(omit the & in the method signature if you're on PHP5)