CakePHP model belongs to any other model

I am not sure what is the correct title. Here is my problem:

There are several models such as:

Company

Person (not same as the Users)

User

etc.

Some of them needs to have one or more files attached to them.

So I have created an UploadedFile model. How to link this to any of the above models? Sometimes the UploadedFile belongs to a Company. Sometimes the UploadedFile belongs to Person

If an UploadedFile belongs to a Company, then it doesn't bel开发者_StackOverflow社区ong to others like Person.

All UploadedFile belongs to User (because they upload them and I need to track who uploaded it)

Does HABTM works here? Any other better ways?

Thank you very much for help.

Best regards,

Tony.

Make the UploadedFile belog to all three (User, Company and Person):

var $belongsTo = array(
    'User' => array('className' => 'User','foreignKey' => 'user_id'),
    'Company' => array('className' => 'Company','foreignKey' => 'company_id'),
    'Person' => array('className' => 'Person','foreignKey' => 'person_id'));

Since it always belong to a User, the user_id will always have a value.

Then you will check whether the company_id is set or the person_id is set and determine to which of them the file belongs. I have an application that works just like this. It is a bit painstaking, but I could not find any other solution

Another good idea will be to try and combine Person and Company in a single table, and just have a flag to distinguish between the two.