Refactoring the table factory to make it a bit more useful in the way

you can store defaults in advance and allowing more control for
subclasses if they are used

lib/Cake/ORM/Table.php

@@ -108,13 +108,16 @@ class Table {
  */
 	public function __construct($config = array()) {
 		if (!empty($config['table'])) {
-			$this->_table = $config['table'];
+			$this->table($config['table']);
 		}
 
 		if (!empty($config['alias'])) {
 			$this->alias($config['alias']);
-		} else {
-			$this->alias($this->_table);
+		}
+
+		$table = $this->table();
+		if (isset(static::$_tablesMap[$table])) {
+			$config = array_merge(static::$_tablesMap[$table], $config);
 		}
 
 		if (!empty($config['connection'])) {
@@ -149,15 +152,6 @@ public static function build($alias, array $options = []) {
 		}
 
 		$options = ['alias' => $alias] + $options;
-
-		if (empty($options['table'])) {
-			$options['table'] = Inflector::tableize($alias);
-		}
-
-		if (isset(static::$_tablesMap[$options['table']])) {
-			$options = array_merge(static::$_tablesMap[$options['table']], $options);
-		}
-
 		if (empty($options['className'])) {
 			$options['className'] = get_called_class();
 		}
@@ -228,6 +222,14 @@ public function table($table = null) {
 		if ($table !== null) {
 			$this->_table = $table;
 		}
+		if ($this->_table === null) {
+			$table = explode('\\', get_class($this));
+			$table = substr(end($table), 0, -5);
+			if (empty($table)) {
+				$table = $this->alias();
+			}
+			$this->_table = Inflector::tableize($table);
+		}
 		return $this->_table;
 	}
 
@@ -242,6 +244,11 @@ public function alias($alias = null) {
 			$this->_alias = $alias;
 			static::instance($alias, $this);
 		}
+		if ($this->_alias === null) {
+			$alias = explode('\\', get_class($this));
+			$alias = substr(end($alias), 0, -5) ?: $this->_table;
+			$this->_alias = $alias;
+		}
 		return $this->_alias;
 	}
 

lib/Cake/Test/TestCase/ORM/TableTest.php

@@ -26,6 +26,13 @@
  **/
 class DatesTable extends Table {
 
+/**
+ * Overrides default table name
+ *
+ * @var string
+ */
+	public $_table = 'my_dates';
+
 }
 
 /**
@@ -130,11 +137,10 @@ public function testConfigAndBuild() {
 		Table::clearRegistry();
 		$this->assertEmpty(Table::config());
 
-		$options['className'] = __NAMESPACE__ . '\DatesTable';
-		Table::config('dates', $options);
-		$table = Table::build('foo', ['table' => 'dates']);
+		Table::config('my_dates', $options);
+		$table = Table::build('foo', ['className' => __NAMESPACE__ . '\DatesTable']);
 		$this->assertInstanceOf(__NAMESPACE__ . '\DatesTable', $table);
-		$this->assertEquals('dates', $table->table());
+		$this->assertEquals('my_dates', $table->table());
 		$this->assertEquals('foo', $table->alias());
 		$this->assertSame($this->connection, $table->connection());
 		$this->assertEquals(array_keys($schema), $table->schema()->columns());