Doing a DISTINCT select with CakePHP

  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 40.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 41.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 42.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 43.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 44.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 45.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 46.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 47.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 48.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 49.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 50.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 51.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 56.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 57.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 58.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 59.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 60.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 61.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 62.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 63.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 64.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 65.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 66.
  • warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home/lyniqne/public_html/planetcakephp.org/drupal/sites/all/modules/token/token_node.inc on line 67.
Submitted by Derick Ng on 7 October 2008 - 2:07pm

To select DISTINCT records from a database, simply use the field selector attribute of a normal findAll query.
I.e. to select a grouping of years from a date column (I needed to do this for a summary page I was working on) the syntax is simply:
$this->Model->findAll(null, array(’DISTINCT year(dateField) as yearGroup’));
Note that DISTINCT must be written in capital letters or you will get an unknown column error.
This will return an array containing the years of all the dates in your table.