[Solved] Mutator not working

Need Help
1

I have an integer duration field where I’m storing elapsed times in integer seconds.

For instance:

  • 23 means 23 seconds
  • 62 means 1 minute and 2 seconds
  • 3600 means exactly one hour

I want to show the formatted elapsed time every time I’m showing this field, so I did this accesor:

    protected function _getDuration($duration)
    {
        return isset($duration) ? (new FrozenTime($duration))->format('G:i:s') : '';
    }

…and it works well with already saved data in the database.

So, then I did a mutator:

    protected function _setDuration($duration)
    {
        return $duration;
    }

I don’t want to convert the duration field when saving, because it already comes from a beforeSave method on the table, which returns the value exactly as it should be saved:

    public function beforeSave(Event $event, Session $session)
    {
        $begin = $session->begin;
        $end = $session->end;
        
        // Only if session ended
        if (isset($end)) {
            $session->set('duration', $this->getInterval($begin, $end));
        }
    }

From what I understand reading https://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/entities.html#accessors-mutators, everything should work well. But the actual result is that the integer value saved is the rounded number of hours (not seconds!).

For instance:

  • 30 seconds is saved as 0
  • 59 minutes and 59 secons is saved as 0
  • 1 hour is saved as 1
  • 4 hours and 59 minutes is saved as 4

Apparently, Cake is using the accessor when saving the data, along with the mutator. If this is the case, WHY?

I expect Cake to use the accessor when reading the field and the mutator when saving it. That’s all.

Any idea? Thanks.

2

For saving in and out of the database you probably want to use complex types.

https://book.cakephp.org/3.0/en/orm/saving-data.html#saving-complex-types

3

Actually, the saved data is just an integer.

Finally, I did it with a virtual property after getting info on https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/issues/10993

Thanks, anyhow.