How can I link 2 existing models in my laravel code? - laravel

Question

I have two models customer and orders. They are already fecthed separately
$customers = customer::all();
$orders = orders::all();
customerID=1 has orderID : 1, 2,4 customerID=2 has orderID : 3,5,9
They are related (hasMany, belongsTo) but the problem is inside my for a certain reason they are separated but I want to send them as response in API using toJson or ToArray as one data having the orders nested to their correct customers.
How can I achieve that linking to have at the end one variable $customersWithOrders that should be transformed to JSON ?
I am using laravel 5.5

Answer 1

I don't know what the context is. Defining relationships as other answers mentioned is a good solution.
In addition, I recently read a pretty good article about this specific scenario.
So you can also do something like this, if you have already retrieved customers and orders:
$customers = Customer::all();
$orders = Order::all();
return $customers->each(function ($customers) use ($orders) {
$customer->setRelation('orders', $orders->where('customer_id', $customer->id));
});

Answer 2

If you already have a relation you just use it. For example, in model Customer.php:
public function orders()
{
return $this->hasMany(Order::class);
}
Then you'd get customer orders by calling $customer->orders

Answer 3

If you already have defined relations, you can simply fetch data with eager loading
// in customer model
public function orders()
{
return $this->hasMany(orders::class, 'orderID');
}
// in controller
$customersWithOrders = customer::with('orders')->get();
return response()->json(['customersWithOrders' => $customersWithOrders]);
// in js
for (let customer in response.customersWithOrders){
let orders = customer.orders
}