cakePHP - how do I conditionally load a component into a controller?

Question

I'm using the great Facebook plugin for cakephp 1.3 by http://www.webtechnick.com. This is what I have at the moment:

class UsersController extends AppController {
    var $name = 'Users';
    var $components = array('Facebook.Connect');

    function beforeFilter {
        $this->set('facebookUser', $this->Connect->user());
    }
}

But I want to load the Facebook.Connect component conditionally, and use it in the controller - something like this in sudocode...

if ($thisIsTrue) {
    Load_the_component_and_make_it_ready_for_use;
    $this->set('facebookUser', $this->Connect->user());
}

How should I do this?

Answer 1

Since the Component is initialized while loading with the controller I wouldn't recommend loading it later on.

Like maggie commented you could load the component ( http://book.cakephp.org/view/939/Loading-Components ) but then you'd have to call startup and initialize yourself and attach the object to your controller.

All in all it might be easier to just make the $this->set... conditional and let the component load every time.

Answer 2

Unless there's something I'm missing here, you use App::import to import a component.

I've heard you don't want to do this with models, because there are other things setup behind the scenes. But components should be fine.

if( $condition ) {
 App::import( 'Component', 'MyComponent' );
 $this->MyComponent = new MyComponent();
 $this->MyComponent->method();
}

HTH, Travis