updateExistingPivot using the primary key instead of the foreign key - laravel

Question

I think this question is similar to this one, however I also think my use case is slightly different.
I am successfully able to update a pivot table using updateExistingPivot when a single user exists; however instead of referencing the FK on the pivot table, I need to reference the id.
I have three tables: users, roles and role_user.
users
id|name|email
roles
id|title
role_user
id|active|user_id|role_id
For example, if I have two users in my application, the users table would look like:
id: 1|name: foo|email: fooexample#email.com
id: 2|name: bar|email: barexample#email.com
My roles table looks like this:
id: 1|title: fizz
id: 2|title: buzz
id: 3|title: bang
Each user is given 3 roles by default. So my role_user table looks like this:
id: 1|active: true|user_id: 1|role_id: 1
id: 2|active: true|user_id: 1|role_id: 2
id: 3|active: true|user_id: 1|role_id: 3
id: 4|active: true|user_id: 2|role_id: 1
id: 5|active: true|user_id: 2|role_id: 2
id: 6|active: true|user_id: 2|role_id: 3
Because updateExistingPivot looks at the FK to decide what to update, everything works great with a single user. However, when I have duplicate user_id and/or role_id FK's things start to fall apart. Instead of looking at the FK, I need to be able to look at the id in my pivot table.
I am passing my roles to a vue component from my controller like this:
// Get the roles(s) that belong to the user.
$roles = $user->roles
->sortByDesc('title')
->toJson();
I am rendering the list on screen, and when a user clicks a role, they can update it's status:
...
async handleRoleClick(event, role) {
console.log('updating role: ', role);
try {
let response = await axios.patch(`/my-path`, {
active: !this.active,
id: role.pivot.id,
});
// data getting passed is correct.
// active: false
// id: 5 <-- the id of the pivot table, not a FK value
if (response.status === 200) {
console.log('response.data', response.data);
this.active = response.data.role.pivot.active;
console.log('active: ', this.active);
} else {
console.error('Error: could not update role. ', response);
}
} catch (error) {
console.error('Error: sending patch request. ', error);
}
},
...
My update method in my controller looks like this:
$attributes = request()->validate([
'active' => 'required',
'id' => 'required',
]);
// Get the authenticated user.
$user = auth()->user();
// Update the roles' status in the pivot table.
$user->roles()->updateExistingPivot($attributes['id'], $attributes);
// Get the role that was just updated via the relationship.
$role_with_pivot = $user->roles()->where('role_user.id', $attributes['id'])->first();
return response()->json(['role' => $role_with_pivot], 200);
The data I am sending in my request headers is correct. I am not getting any errors, however my pivot table is not getting the values I am passing to it. I assume it's because I am not correctly sending the id. In my example above it would be id: 5. Because there isn't a user_id of 5 or role_id of 5, Laravel isn't sure what to do.
How can I tell Laravel to look at the id of the pivot table, and not a foreign key?

Answer 1

The way I am doing it though seems kind of sketchy. I'd be really interested to see if there is a more "Laravel way" of doing this. Everything else is above is the same, here is what my update method on my controller looks like.
controller
public function update(Request $request, Role $role)
{
$attributes = request()->validate([
'active' => 'required',
'id' => 'required',
]);
// Get the authenticated user.
$user = auth()->user();
// Get the requested role (row) from the pivot table.
$role = $user->roles()->where('role_user.id', $attributes['id'])->first();
// Update the requested role.
$role->pivot->active = $attributes['active'];
// Save the requested role.
$role->pivot->save();
// Get the role that was just updated via it's relationship.
$role_with_pivot = $user->roles()->where('role_user.id', $attributes['id'])->first();
return response()->json(['role' => $role_with_pivot], 200);
}

Answer 2

You should retrieve role id in you View instead of pivot primary key, and use role_id to update pivot table.
As stated your user has multiple roles, but only one combination of role and user id.
async handleRoleClick(event, role) {
console.log('updating role: ', role);
try {
let response = await axios.patch(`/my-path`, {
active: !this.active,
id: role.id, //change this
});
// data getting passed is correct.
// active: false
// id: 5 <-- the id of the pivot table, not a FK value
if (response.status === 200) {
console.log('response.data', response.data);
this.active = response.data.role.pivot.active;
console.log('active: ', this.active);
} else {
console.error('Error: could not update role. ', response);
}
} catch (error) {
console.error('Error: sending patch request. ', error);
}
},

Answer 3

it's late, but might help some artisans in the future.
You may use DB method directly or create a dedicated model/entity for that table.
e.g
DB::table('role_user')->where('id', $id);
or
RoleUser::find($id);