Yii findByAttributes() with greater than attribute.

Question

I have been using Yii for a while now and when I want to pull data from a database I generally just use a findByAttributes.

$model=Auction::model()->findAllByAttributes(array('status'=>'1'));

Or something along those lines.

My question would be, how would I handle a greater than type situation? I tried

$model=Auction::model()->findAllByAttributes(array('starttime'>=$date));

where date had been assigned a current date/time setup however this causes an error. So my question is do I need to use conditions and or params? Should I do this type of thing in the model and or using the Criteria or CActiveDataProvider stuff?

I would appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction. I have always just gotten by using findAll()s but I know their is a better way to do this. Some general info on what and when to use Attributes, Conditions, Params, etc would also be nice.

I have read the Yii documentation and searched tons of sites for the answers to these questions and Im not finding it.

Answer 1

The type of the 2nd parameter of findAllByAttributes is mixed, thus we have (not infinitely but) many possibilities, for example:

$model = Auction::model()->findAllByAttributes(
    array(
      'status' => 1
    ), 
    'starttime >= :date', 
    array(
        'date'=>$date
    )
));

or

$model = Auction::model()->findAllByAttributes(
    array(
      'status' => 1
    ), 
    array(
      'condition' => 'starttime >= :date'
      'params' => array('date'=>$date)
    )
));

Answer 2

It's a good idea to use params even with findByAttributes, but that only does matching. You can use findAll and add a condition statement and the format would be very similar to what you are already doing:

$model=Auction::model()->findAll(array(
    'condition'=>'status=:status AND starttime >= :date',
    'params'=>array(':status'=>1, ':date'=>$date),
));

If you were doing a very complex query or building a query programmatically you might want to use findAllBySql or CDbConnection::createCommand or Query Builder, it just depends on what makes the most sense for your app.

I would (re)read the Yii section on Working with Databases, while it doesn't have extensive examples, it's pretty clear. Then you can try the Yii Blog tutorial, Larry Ullman's tutorials, etc.