Inner JOIN bug in CakePHP

table.php

<?php
// So I'm going to be demonstrating a problem with INNER joins
//Bake automatically creates INNER JOINs for a belongsTo association,
// where the foreign key is not allowed to be null (Always BelongsTo)
// This is great if you have an (AlwaysBelongsTo) association, but
// when you don't always BelongTo another model, we need LEFT joins.
// The problem arised when you have a model that someTimesBelongsTo another model
// and that other model alwaysBelongsTo another model (LEFT, then INNER joins)
// Cake doesn't use proper parenthesis in these cases, but simply lines the joins up,
// one after another.
// Let me show you the following scenario

// Comments someTimesBelongsTo Articles (Lets say we can have stray comments) // LEFT JOIN here
// Articles alwaysBelongsTo Authors // INNER JOIN here

// CommentsTable.php
public function initialize(array $config)
{
  // ...
  $this->belongsTo('Articles', [
    'joinType' => 'INNER'
  ]);
  //...
}

// ArticlesTable.php
public function initialize(array $config)
{
  // ...
  $this->belongsTo('Authors', [
    'joinType' => 'LEFT' // Or just leave this blank, I think LEFT joins are the default
  ]);
  //...
}

// Now lets try the following code in our CommentsController.php
// Note that if we run this with an empty Articles and Authors table, it will still work fine
// Only thing we will notice, is that our entity will have a $entity->articles field set to null
$this->Comments->find()
  ->contain(['Articles']); 
  
// Now lets try it this way:
$this->Comments->find()
  ->contain(['Articles', 'Articles.Authors']); // since we want to not only have articles, but their authors as well
// This works fine, if there are authors in the system, but try it when there are no authors. It will return an empty result.
// Not just an empty articles association, but it won't find any comments, because its doing an INNER JOIN.

// Of course if change the strategy to use a separate query that will work, but joining should work as well. I would suggest
// the proper use of parenthesis in such situations.

?>