cakephp sql join query in controller - sql

Question

I'm new to CakePHP and stuck on this situation:
I'm developing a test system and I have following three tables: Category, SubCategory, Test
When I create a test, I store category_id, subcategory_id with other data in Test table
Now in TestsController, I want to read the number of records & rows matched by the query
I wish to execute queries similar to these:
Query 1
select count(*) from Test where user_id='$user_id' and category_id=$category_id and subcategory_id=$subcategory_id
Query 2
select
a.test_id,
a.test_name,
a.user_id,
a.test_type,
a.create_date,
a.create_time,
a.category_id,
a.subcategory_id,
a.randomize,
a.test_password
from Test a, Category b, SubCategory c
where user_id='$user_id' and
a.category_id=$category_id and
a.subcategory_id=$subcategory_id and
a.category_id=b.category_id and
a.subcategory_id=c.subcategory_id
Now, I don't want (I actually don't know) to use the $hasMany, $belongsTo etc.
I simply want to execute these queries in Controller & pass the data to the view
Note: In all simple cases, I used the CakePHP style of coding
I wish to know, how can I get an array of rows after executing Query 2
Is it possible to execute such query directly (like mysql_query)

Answer 1

you could create a function in Test Model and access the query, like:
class TestModel extends Model {
..
public function getQueryData($user_id, $cat_id, $subcat_id) {
return $this->query("SELECT a.test_id, a.test_name ..... ;");
}
}
and in Test controller, you could do:
$this->loadModel("Test");
$result = $this->Test->getQueryData($user_id, $cat_id, $subcat_id);