Adding attributes to collection requests in Magento

Question

I hope someone can help me puzzle this one out. I'm trying to load some data out of a Magento catalog model using a collection. The code looks like this: ``` $model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product'); $collection = $model->getCollection(); $collection->addAttributeToSelect('short_description'); $collection->addFieldToFilter('SKU',array('like' => array('%EBOOK%'))); $collection->load(); var_dump($collection->getData()); ``` This produces a dump of objects with all the fields in the flat catalog product table, but not the field that I have requested with the `$collection->addAttributeToSelect()` method. No matter what field I specify with this method (even '*'), I cannot get the collection to return anything other than its standard set of fields. I also can't unset any fields using `$collection->removeFieldFromSelect(NULL)` which is supposed to work. Am I doing something stupid/wrong/both? Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

This is because you call `getData()` on the collection, but not on a product of this collection.

I never really analyzed why this happens, but if you use

```
foreach ($collection as $product) {
    var_dump($product->getData());
}
```

instead of

```
$collection->load();
var_dump($collection->getData());
```

you'll get the data you're expecting.

Adding attributes to collection requests in Magento

Solution

Problem