How to select based on child of child relationship using Laravel Eloquent? - laravel

Question

I have the following tables structure for merchants & dynamic filters
Merchant Table
id | name
-------------------------
1 | Food Supplier
Filters
id | name
-------------------------
1 | Service Area
2 | Service Cost
Filter Values
id | filter_id | value
-------------------------
1 | 1 | Africa
2 | 1 | Europe
3 | 2 | 2000-4000
4 | 2 | 4000-6000
Merchant Filter Values
id | filter_id | value_id | merchant_id
----------------------------------------
1 | 1 | 1 | 1
2 | 1 | 2 | 1
3 | 2 | 4 | 1
I run the following query to search through merchants using filters:
select *
from `merchants`
where `name` LIKE "%search_term%"
and exists (
select *
from `filter_values`
inner join `merchant_filter_values`
on `filter_values`.`id` = `merchant_filter_values`.`value_id`
where `merchants`.`id` = `merchant_filter_values`.`merchant_id`
and (`filter_values`.`id` = 1 and filter_values.filter_id = 2)
or (`filter_values`.`id` = 2 and filter_values.filter_id = 3)
or etc.
)
The query works fine, and returns results as expected, the only problem that it is not eloquent so it doesn't return appends variables/functions from the model for example that featured_img_url is not returned in the result:
protected $appends = array('featured_img_url');
public function getFeaturedImgUrlAttribute()
{
$img_path = Config::get('app.asset_url') . "/merchants/featured/" . $this->id . ".";
return $img_path . $this->featured_image_ext . $this->getLastUpdatedUrl();
}
The question is, how do I write such query using laravel eloquent?

Answer 1

You have to use hydrate() function to convert result of select query to eloquent collection. you can use something like this:
$merchants = \DB::select( "select *
from `merchants`
where `name` LIKE '%search_term%'
and exists (
select *
from `filter_values`
inner join `merchant_filter_values`
on `filter_values`.`id` = `merchant_filter_values`.`value_id`
where `merchants`.`id` = `merchant_filter_values`.`merchant_id`
and (`filter_values`.`id` = 1 and filter_values.filter_id = 2)
or (`filter_values`.`id` = 2 and filter_values.filter_id = 3)
or etc.
)" );
return Merchant::hydrate($merchants);
You have to define Merchant Model too.