I am a Yii beginner and am running into a bit of a wall and hope someone will be able to help me get back onto track. I think this might be a fairly straight forward question to the seasoned Yii user. So here goes...

In the controller, let's say I run the following call to the model-

$variable = Post::model()->findAll();

All works fine and I pass the variable into the view. Here's where I get pretty stuck. The array that is returned in the above query is far more complex than I anticipated and I'm struggling to make sense of it. Here's a sample-

print_r($variable);

gives-

Array ( [0] => Post Object ( [_md:CActiveRecord:private] => CActiveRecordMetaData Object                             ( [tableSchema] => CMysqlTableSchema Object ( [schemaName] => [name] => tbl_post [rawName] => `tbl_post` [primaryKey] => id [sequenceName] => [foreignKeys] => Array ( ) [columns] => Array ( [id] => CMysqlColumnSchema Object ( [name] => id [rawName] => `id` [allowNull] => [dbType] => int(11) [type] => integer [defaultValue] => [size] => 11 [precision] => 11 [scale] => [isPrimaryKey] => 1 [isForeignKey] => [autoIncrement] => 1 [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) [post] => CMysqlColumnSchema Object ( [name] => post [rawName] => `post` [allowNull] => [dbType] => text [type] => string [defaultValue] => [size] => [precision] => [scale] => [isPrimaryKey] => [isForeignKey] => [autoIncrement] => [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) ) [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) [columns] => Array ( [id] => CMysqlColumnSchema Object ( [name] => id [rawName] => `id` [allowNull] => [dbType] => int(11) [type] => integer [defaultValue] => [size] => 11 [precision] => 11 [scale] => [isPrimaryKey] => 1 [isForeignKey] => [autoIncrement] => 1 [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) [post] => CMysqlColumnSchema Object ( [name] => post [rawName] => `post` [allowNull] => [dbType] => text [type] => string [defaultValue] => [size] => [precision] => [scale] => [isPrimaryKey] => [isForeignKey] => [autoIncrement] => [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) ) [relations] => Array ( [responses] => CHasManyRelation Object ( [limit] => -1 [offset] => -1 [index] => [through] => [joinType] => LEFT OUTER JOIN [on] => [alias] => [with] => Array ( ) [together] => [scopes] => [name] => responses [className] => Response [foreignKey] => post_id [select] => * [condition] => [params] => Array ( ) [group] => [join] => [having] => [order] => [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) ) [attributeDefaults] => Array ( ) [_model:CActiveRecordMetaData:private] => Post Object ( [_md:CActiveRecord:private] => CActiveRecordMetaData Object *RECURSION* [_new:CActiveRecord:private] => [_attributes:CActiveRecord:private] => Array ( ) [_related:CActiveRecord:private] => Array ( ) [_c:CActiveRecord:private] => [_pk:CActiveRecord:private] => [_alias:CActiveRecord:private] => t [_errors:CModel:private] => Array ( ) [_validators:CModel:private] => [_scenario:CModel:private] => [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) ) [_new:CActiveRecord:private] => [_attributes:CActiveRecord:private] => Array ( [id] => 1 [post] => User Post ) [_related:CActiveRecord:private] => Array ( ) [_c:CActiveRecord:private] => [_pk:CActiveRecord:private] => 1 [_alias:CActiveRecord:private] => t [_errors:CModel:private] => Array ( ) [_validators:CModel:private] => [_scenario:CModel:private] => update [_e:CComponent:private] => [_m:CComponent:private] => ) )

[sorry if there's an easier way to show this array, I'm not aware of it]

Can anyone explain to me why the model returns such a complex array? It doesn't seem to matter what tables or columns or relations are used in your application, they all seem to me to return this format.

Also, can someone explain the structure to me so that I can isolate the variables that I want to recover?

Many thanks in advance,

Nick