Magento flat product table - retrieving "Most Viewed" product names

Question

Hi All

I currently show a collection of the "Most Viewed" products as a list in my footer. I get the collection using the following code:

$_viewed_productCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('reports/product_collection')
->addAttributeToSelect('*')
->addViewsCount()
->setOrder('views_count', 'desc')
$_viewed_productCollection->load();

This works fine until I enable flat products, and then it can no longer retrieve the product names or prices. It can however still get the url, the sku etc, which really confuses me. I printed out the array of what can be returned, and it seems there’s no name data there at all, only the following:

Array (     
[views] => 29     
[entity_id] => 18     
[entity_type_id] => 10     
[attribute_set_id] => 38     
[type_id] => simple     
[sku] => sw810i     
[created_at] => 2007-08-23 15:47:44     
[updated_at] => 2008-08-08 14:50:56     
[has_options] => 0     
[required_options] => 0     
[is_salable] => 1     
[stock_item] => Varien_Object Object         
( [_data:protected] => Array                 
( [is_in_stock] => 1 )              
[_origData:protected] =>              
[_idFieldName:protected] =>              
[_isDeleted:protected] => )      
[gift_message_available] => 2 
) 

Is there anyway to get a product name using it's SKU? Something like this perhaps:

<?php $sku = $_product->getData('sku'); echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName($sku)) ?> 

Answer 1

I think this is actually a bug, as why would you not be able to get a products name? So, I've submitted it as such:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/bug-tracking/issue?issue=9812

I did come up with a workaround for this, if anyone needs it:

<?php foreach ($_productCollection as $_product):  ?>
        <?php $sku = $_product->getData('sku'); $_currentproduct = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->loadByAttribute('sku', $sku);  ?>
        <li><a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>"><?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_currentproduct->getName()) ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach;  ?>

Basically you’re just using the sku, which you can get straight from the product collection, to load the name separately.