Using DISTINCT in a CakePHP find function

Question

I am writing a CakePHP 1.2 app. I have a list of people that I want the user to be able to filter on different fields. For each filterable field, I have a drop down list.

Answer 1

You can try this. Here this takes Person id as key, so there is no chance for duplicate entries.

    $first_names = $this->Person->find('list', array(
    'fields' => array('id','first_name'),
    'conditions' => array('Person.status' => '1'),
   ));
    $this->set('first_names', $first_names);