Laravel merge a relation - laravel

Question

How can I merge my Laravel code to have only one collection? I have the following
$users = User::with(['messages'=> function($query) {
$query->select('sender');
}])->with(['files' => function($query) {
$query->select('size');
}])->get(['name']);
I expect my results to be
[
{
"name": "user 1",
"sender": "user 3",
"size": "3 MB"
}
]

Answer 1

You wrote messages and files as plural mean its a OneToMany, mean messages and files should retrieve a collection of object
Anyway if its for an API (as i see you want to return json) you could use the laravel ressources (https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/eloquent-resources) and prepare your object
return [
'name' => $this->name,
'sender' => $this->messages->sender,
'size' => $this->files->size
]

Answer 2

When you are using with() relation, the resultant collection will have the relative collections inside it.
In your case :
user_collection
- userdata
.
.
- file_collection
- message_collection
Now, there are few ways you can do it :
1. Have a join query :
$users = User::join('messages', 'messaged.user_id', '=', 'users.id')
->join('files', 'files.user_id', '=', 'users.id')
->select('users.name', 'files.size', 'messages.sender')
->get();
2. Format data using resources :
Resources are a kind of mapper or modifier which will return the response in format you like. It standardises the response the way you want it.
You can create app\Http\Resources\UserResource.php:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Resources;
use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;
class User extends JsonResource
{
/**
* Transform the resource into an array.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #return array
*/
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'size' => $this->files->size,
'sender' => $this->messages->sender,
'name' => $this->name
];
}
}
And then inside controller :
return new UserResource(User::find(1));
The advantage is that if you want messages to look certain way, you can nest the Resource classes. The documentation has detailed examples.