If you want to find something in the database using regular expressions:

$domainNamed = $this->DomainName->find('all', array(
'conditions' => array(
'name REGEXP "^www.i"'
),
'fields' => array(
'name'
),
'contain' => false,
'limit' => 10
));

The code above will find all domain names that start with "www.".

Well ok not 100% the cakephp way but better than just using $this->query(...).

I wanted it to look like this:

$this->find('all', array(

'fields' => array('id', 'name'),

'use' => 'index_name'

));

To get this working you need to modify dbo_source. Copy it from cake/libs/model/datasources/dbo_source.php to app/models/datasources/dbo_source.php.

You can download my modified dbo_source.php . I have commented the modified lines with "added". I have only tested this on MySQL. I do not know if it will work on other databases. Also I am not sure if my solution is the best. Please feel free to comment if you have any improvements.

To manually modify the dbo_source to support the USE INDEX syntax:

in function read:

/* added */

if (!isset($queryData['use']))

    $queryData['use'] = null;

/* /added */

in function generateAssociationQuery:

    return $this->buildStatement(

    array(

'fields' => array_unique($queryData['fields']),

'table' => $this->fullTableName($model),

'alias' => $model->alias,

'limit' => $queryData['limit'],

'offset' => $queryData['offset'],

'joins' => $queryData['joins'],

'conditions' => $queryData['conditions'],

'order' => $queryData['order'],

'group' => $queryData['group'],

'use' => $queryData['use'] // added

    ), $model

    );

in function buildStatement:

return $this->renderStatement('select', array(

    'conditions' => $this->conditions($query['conditions'], true, true, $model),

    'fields' => implode(', ', $query['fields']),

    'table' => $query['table'],

    'alias' => $this->alias . $this->name($query['alias']),

    'order' => $this->order($query['order'], 'ASC', $model),

    'limit' => $this->limit($query['limit'], $query['offset']),

    'joins' => implode(' ', $query['joins']),

    'group' => $this->group($query['group'], $model),

    'use' => $query['use'] // added

));

in function renderStatement:

    case 'select':

/* added */

if (empty($use)) // added

    return "SELECT {$fields} FROM {$table} {$alias} {$joins} {$conditions} {$group} {$order} {$limit}";

else

    return "SELECT {$fields} FROM {$table} {$alias} {$joins} USE INDEX ({$use}) {$conditions} {$group} {$order} {$limit}";

/* /added */

break;

I needed to do some table locking. Just call the method from the controller to lock and unlock your tables. The code below is only tested with MySQL and InnoDb tables. Put it in app_model.php

{code }

<?php

class AppModel extends Model {

    function lockTableRW() {

$this->lockTable('READ');

$this->lockTable('WRITE');

    }

    function lockTable($type='READ') {

$dbo = $this->getDataSource();

$dbo->execute('LOCK TABLES '.$this->table.' '.$type);

    }

    function unlockTables() {

$dbo = $this->getDataSource();

$dbo->execute('UNLOCK TABLES');

    }

}