CakePHP External API aggregation - A Model, Datasource & Behaviour Design Question - Best Practice

Submitted by Derick Ng on 18 January 2010 - 4:25am

Hi,

I have a project that requires me to integrate with 2 REST APIs and then aggregate the results. I am building this project in CakePHP

My basic approach is:

Product (model)
Products (controller)
API1 (datasource)
API2 (datasource)
Aggregation (behaviour)

The basic flow is:
1. User enters a product name into a search form /products/search i.e 'DVD'
2. search() action on controller calls model->find() passing search term
3. search term is then passed to each datasource and the APIs return results
4. behaviour cleans, aggregates and reorders the results into a single dataset
5. model passes data back to controller, that then passes data onto the view
6. paginated results displayed on the search results page

This is where I get stuck...

Can a single model use 2 datasources and then use a behaviour to perform aggregation tasks.

I have only ever created a model that uses a single custom datasource.

Any ideas about the best way to do this would be really appreciated. The project scope is that the number of APIs integrated could grow to 10+ depending upon the success of this prototype project.

Thanks,
Paul