CakePHP: agnostic model manipulation

Question

Is there a way to fetch/manipulate a model agnostically in the AppController in order to avoid DRYness in the controllers of the application ? For example:

//AppController.php
public function find_all()
{
   return $this->AppModel->find('all'); 
   //I know this does not work but to give you the idea
}

And in children controllers of the app:

//FoosController.php
public function some_function()
{
   $data = parent::find_all();
   //List of Foo entities
}

Or:

//BarsController.php
public function some_other_function()
{
   $data = parent::find_all();
   //List of Bar entities
}

Is there a solution CakePHP can provide ? Or using reflection, maybe ?

Thank you for your help !

Answer 1

I figured out a way to achieve what I was looking for:

//AppController.php
public function find_all()
{
   return $this->{$this->modelClass}->find('all'); 
}

NOTE: If you are performing repetitive CRUD operations without any real business logic or authorization involved (as I currently am), you can also use you these lines of code to persist entites without being aware of the model that is being handled in the AppController.

//AppController.php
if (!$this->{$this->modelClass}->save($this->request->data))
{
   $validationErrors = $this->{$this->modelClass}->validationErrors;
   //error logic here
}
else
{
   //success logic here
}