Factory & Seeder for Pivot Table - laravel

Question

I am trying to create a factory and seeder for a pivot table. I am trying to do so without creating a model just for the pivot table. However, in doing so, I am getting an error. Before I show the error, here are my files:
// CategoryNewsFactory.php
use App\Model;
use Faker\Generator as Faker;
$factory->define(Model::class, function (Faker $faker) {
DB::table('category_news')->insert(
[
'category_id' => factory(App\Category::class)->create()->id,
'news_id' => factory(App\News::class)->create()->id,
]
);
});
// CategoriesNewsSeeder.php
public function run()
{
factory(App\Model::class, 35)->create();
}
And here is my error message:
Error
Class 'App\Model' not found
at C:\laragon\www\startup-reporter\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\FactoryBuilder.php:232
228| if ($this->amount < 1) {
229| return (new $this->class)->newCollection();
230| }
231|
> 232| $instances = (new $this->class)->newCollection(array_map(function () use ($attributes) {
233| return $this->makeInstance($attributes);
234| }, range(1, $this->amount)));
235|
236| $this->callAfterMaking($instances);
1 C:\laragon\www\startup-reporter\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\FactoryBuilder.php:169
Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\FactoryBuilder::make([])
2 C:\laragon\www\startup-reporter\database\seeds\CategoriesNewsTableSeeder.php:14
Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\FactoryBuilder::create()
So I am wondering, what am I doing wrong and how can I fix it?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Firstly, you can create the model for your pivot table as far as Model class (in your case) doesn't exist at all. Secondly, you can attach/sync one model to another instead of creating a pivot record manually. Finally, you can use the following code inside factory(App\Category::class)
$factory->afterCreating(Category::class, function (Category $category, $faker) {
$category->news()->save(factory(News::class)->make());
});