Laravel multiple relation in a same table - laravel

Question

In my project, users can like & comment on feeds & forums. So, there is a contribution page where the user can see where he has provided his input (like or comment) sorted by created_at time.
There may be another feature in future like feed & forum where user can also provide like & comment.
In my contribution page, I want to list data like this -
You have commented on user_2's feed feed_title at created_at - comment
You have liked user_2's feed feed_title at created_at
You have commented on user_3's forum forum_title at created_at - comment
You have liked user_3's forum forum_title at created_at
But I am stuck in database design. So far I am trying this -
Schema::create('contributions', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->uuid('id')->primary();
$table->uuid('user_id');
$table->uuid('contribution_id'); // id of my like/comment
$table->string('contribution_type'); // feed_like/feed_comment/forum_like/forum_comment
$table->uuid('target_id'); // id of feed/forum where I provided comment or like
$table->timestamps();
});
But it will cause a query loop when I retrieve the data. So, is there any better approach to what I am trying to get?

Answer 1

You are probably looking for Polymorphic Relationships.
That enables you to simplify the relationship by providing an ID of the related model and a naming of the related model instead.
A sample migration would look like this, using the morph method as inspiration (since you're using UUID's):
Schema::create('contributions', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->uuid('id')->primary();
$table->uuid('user_id');
$table->uuid('contributable_id');
$table->string('contributable_type');
$table->timestamps();
});
This should enable you to do something like:
class Contribution extends Model {
public function contributable() {
return $this->morphTo();
}
}
class User extends Model
{
/**
* Get the user's contributions.
*/
public function contributions()
{
return $this->morphToMany(Contribution::class, 'contributable');
}
}
You should be able to retrieve the users contributions that way and defining the action based on the morphed instance type.