Hi folks !
Well, since Cake 4.1 will adopt window functions, I think the timing would be very good to add a very useful feature adopted by all major SGBDs in the last years:

• Mysql: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!9/146217/3
• Postgres: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!17/fb46f/1/0
• SQLite: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!7/fb46f/1
• SQLServer 2017 >=: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!18/2cb0e/5

As you can see, there are two different syntaxes: STRING_AGG and GROUP_CONCAT, this article has a very good comparison.

An usage on Cake ORM would be something like:

$q = $this->Classes->find();
$q
    ->select(['description', $q->func()->strAgg('name')])
    ->innerJoinWith('Students')
    ->groupBy('description');

This could be very useful to produce a fast and simple query for reports and similars

• enhancement
• feature-discussion (RFC)