Why is the CakePHP authentication component not hashing my password?

Question

I'm using CakePHP 1.2 with Auth and ACL components.

In my user register action, the password is coming in unhashed. Specifically, this expression:

if ($this->data['User']['password'] !=
    $this->Auth->password($this->data['User']['confirm_password']))

This is evaluating to true, even when I submit identical values for password and confirm_password. I know that password is unhashed because when I remove the call to Auth->password, the expression evaluates to false.

I expected the Auth module to automagically hash the password. What am I doing wrong?

Here is my view:

<?php
    echo $form->create('User', array('action' => 'register'));

    echo $form->input('email',
                      array('after' => $form->error(
                        'email_unique', 'This email is already registered.')));
    echo $form->input('password');
    echo $form->input('confirm_password', array('type' => 'password'));
    echo $form->end('Register');
?>

Here is my register action from the user controller:

function register(){
    if ($this->data) {
        if ($this->data['User']['password'] !=
            $this->Auth->password($this->data['User']['confirm_password'])) {

            $this->Session->setFlash(__('Password and Confirm Password must match.', true));
            $this->data['User']['password'] = '';
            $this->data['User']['confirm_password'] = '';
        }
        else{
            $this->User->create();
            if ($this->User->save($this->data)){
                $this->redirect(array('action' => 'index'), null, true);
            }
            else {
                $this->data['User']['password'] = '';
                $this->data['User']['confirm_password'] = '';
                $this->Session->setFlash(__('Some problem saving your information.', true));
            }
        }
    }
}

And here is my appController where I include the Auth and Acl modules:

class AppController extends Controller {
    var $components = array('Acl', 'Auth');

    function beforeFilter(){
        if (isset($this->Auth)) {
            $this->Auth->allow('display');
            $this->Auth->fields =
              array(
                'username' => 'email',
                'password' => 'password');
            $this->Auth->authorize = 'actions';
        }
    }
}

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

CakePHP won't hash passwords unless username contains a submitted value. I'm replacing the username field with email. However, I remapped those fields by setting the Auth->fields array. However, I was doing that in the appController instead of userController. So moving this line:

$this->Auth->fields = array('username' => 'email', 'password' => 'password');

out of appController into userController solved it.
Now the question becomes "Why can't I reset the Auth->fields in appController?"