From Laravel's docs, the model polymorphism is defined as follows:
Polymorphic relations allow a model to belong to more than one other model on a single association
Sounds like it's designed to work with belongsTo instead of hasMany side. Here's a scenario that I want to achieve:
In my system, there are many project types, each projec type will have its own invoice field layout. Let's say we have a Project model that has a type field, whose value could be contract or part-time. We have another two tables called ContractInvoice and PartTimeInvoice to define their respective field layout, both of these invoice tables have a project_id referencing a project record. What I want to do is I want a universal interface to retrieve all invoices given a project, something like $project->invoices.
Current solution
I can't figure out how to achieve this via polymorphism. So what I am currently doing is kind silly, using a switch statement in my invoice() method on Project model class:
switch ($this->type) {
case 'contract':
$model = 'App\ContractInvoice';
break;
case 'part-time':
$model = 'App\PartTimeInvoice';
break;
}
return $this->hasMany($model);
I feel like there must be a better way to do this. Can someone please shed some light?
I don't see how a polymorphic relationship would be beneficial in this case. If you had different project type models and a single invoices table, then the invoices could morphTo the projects. But as you've described it, the switch statement sounds like it is adequate. You could achieve the same means using when conditionals like:
public function invoices()
{
return $this->when($this->type === 'contract', function () {
return $this->hasMany(ContractInvoice::class);
})->when($this->type === 'part-time', function () {
return $this->hasMany(PartTimeInvoice::class);
});
}
The type attribute on the Project model and the separate invoice tables are defining a rigid relationship between them, which goes against the idea of polymorphism. Think likes for comments and posts.
Related
I am currently working on a desktop management application with laravel 5.6. According to the management rule a patient can have one or more consultations according to given dates. When I display the list of consultations, I have the same name that repeats, the name that repeats corresponds to the patient who had several consultations, my question of how to avoid this. What I want is the name, and all the dates for these consultations.
class Consultation extends Model
{
public function patient()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\Models\Patient');
}
}
class Patient extends Model
{
public function consultations()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Models\Consultation');
}
}
Here is the query :
$consultations = Consultation::all();
The simplest (but not the prettiest) way to do this is to simply find all patients with consultations. Put those patients in an array, and then in your blade you would loop through these patients and show the consultations individually.
Controller Code:
$active_patients = [];
foreach(Patient::all() as $patient) {
if($patient->consultations->count()>0)
array_push($active_patients,$patient);
}
Pass $active_patients to your view, then loop over it as shown below. Obviously, I don't know all of the attribute names for your Patient or Consultation models and you will need to fix html markup as required, but you can get the picture:
#foreach($active_patients as $patient)
<p>{{$patient->name}}:</p>
#foreach($patient->consultations as $consultation)
<p>{{$consultation->date}}</p>
#endforeach
#endforeach
Disclaimer: This is not the most robust way to do this. It's simply the most straightforward approach. The best way to do this is to use scoped queries combined with appended attributes. For instance, you would make a scope on the Patients model for all patients that have a consultation by using the 'whereHas' eloquent query method to find patients that have consultations scheduled. Then you could just reference them directly as ActivePatient rather than having to build an array each time you reference them. You could also append an attribute to the Consultations model that does the same thing and grabs each consultation for the specific users and makes a nested model collection, but that's much more involved. I'd be happy to share that method with you if you want, but the above code would at least provide you with a working method to achieve what you requested.
Assume I have a User model, and also I have Couple model which forms of 2 users, father_id and mother_id which are essentially user_ids
On User model, I have
public function kids() {
return $this->hasMany('App\Kid', 'father_id');
}
However, I want to check if user_id is either father_id or mother_id, return the related Kid model.
Is there a way to achieve it with a single relationship? What is the proper way of handling this scenario, so I can use $user->kids that would check for both cases?
There is a way, but you wouldn't typically use it to "check" if there are related models.
If you have a field that determines if the model is representing a father or mother, such as is_father, you could do:
public function kids()
{
return ($this->is_father)
? $this->hasMany(Kid::class, 'father_id')
: $this->hasMany(Kid::class, 'mother_id');
}
Essentially, the relationship method MUST return a relationship instance. But you can do logic before you return this.
NOTE: The relationship is cached, so even if the is_father value changes in the same thread run, it will utilize the same relationship that it did before. This can cause unwanted bugs.
I have 3 databases:
Routes:
id
name
Rates:
Id
Route_id
Car_id
Cars:
id
name
My model for routes
public function rates()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Rate', 'route_id');
}
My model for rates
public function car() {
return $this->belongsTo('App\Car','car_id');
}
Now I need to access the car relation, but when I do
return $this->route->with('from','to','rates.car')->paginate(74);
I get null for the car relation
{"id":1,"from_id":1,"to_id":2,"distance":400,"created_at":null,"updated_at":null,"from":{"id":1,"name":"\u0410\u043a\u043a\u043e","created_at":null,"updated_at":null,"lat":32.93310000000000314912540488876402378082275390625,"long":35.0827000000000026602720026858150959014892578125},"to":{"id":2,"name":"\u0410\u0440\u0430\u0434","created_at":null,"updated_at":null,"lat":31.261399999999998300381776061840355396270751953125,"long":35.21490000000000009094947017729282379150390625},"rates":[{"id":1,"route_id":1,"car_id":1,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":5551,"route_id":1,"car_id":2,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":11101,"route_id":1,"car_id":3,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":16651,"route_id":1,"car_id":4,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":22201,"route_id":1,"car_id":5,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":27751,"route_id":1,"car_id":6,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":33301,"route_id":1,"car_id":7,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null},{"id":38851,"route_id":1,"car_id":8,"rate":1123,"night_rate":1391,"car":null}]},
From my understanding you are trying to access a Car model through a Route model.
A couple of things I noticed that should help you find a solution.
First off I think the inverse relation you are supposed to use the belongToMany() function instead.
public function car() {
return $this->belongsToMany('App\Car','Rates'); // Perhaps call the table something like routes_cars to more clearly define it's a pivot table
}
Next I see you are trying to use model functions within the context of $this(). I assume you are doing this in your model? That logic should be in a controller, that might cause some undesired results but I'm not entirely sure. Also it looks like your parameters are incorrect when using with(). You use the function name that you defined in belongsToMany()
App/Route::with('car')->paginate(74);
With the correct relationships setup you rarely need to worry about the pivot table. If you are going to add extra information in the pivot table there are laravel functions to help you do that in the documentation.
I have been trying to get my head around these polymorphic relationships all day. I might be over complicating/thinking it but. Can Laravel handle inverse polymorphic relationships? I have a registration flow that can have two types of field Models- normal field and customField.
When I loop through all the fields available it could pull the attributes from either NormalField or CustomField.
<?php
foreach($registrationFlow->fields->get() as $field)
{
echo $field->name; // could be custom field or could be normal field
}
?>
My difficulty is that, the example given in the docs works if you want to assign a photo to either staff or orders, but i want to assign either a customField or a normalField to a registrationFlow
*Edit
If you follow the example for the polymorphic many to many relationship, The tag class contains posts and videos- while i would want just a simple fields() method that relates to customField or normalField dependent on the type
First of all, you should take a look at the updated docs for Laravel 5.1: https://laravel.com/docs/5.1/eloquent-relationships#polymorphic-relations.
I think the difficulty with the example they provide is that the relationship between Photo and Staff/Product are "has-a" relationships, whereas you are trying to model an "is-a" relationship. However, you can model "is-a" essentially the same way. Take a look at this article: http://richardbagshaw.co.uk/laravel-user-types-and-polymorphic-relationships/.
Basically, the strategy is to define a generic model (and a generic table), perhaps in your case Field, that relates to your RegistrationFlow. You then have two subtype models, NormalField and CustomField, that have one-to-one relationships with Field. (there's your "is-a"). Thus, RegistrationFlow is indirectly related to your field subtypes.
Polymorphism comes in when you want to access the specific subtypes:
class Field extends Model {
public function fieldable()
{
return $this->morphTo();
}
}
Your base field table should have fieldable_id and fieldable_type columns defined (see the Eloquent docs).
You can then add methods to NormalField and CustomField that let you access the base model (your "inverse relationship"):
class NormalField {
public function field()
{
return $this->morphOne('Field', 'fieldable');
}
}
class CustomField {
public function field()
{
return $this->morphOne('Field', 'fieldable');
}
}
Usage:
$field = Field::find(1);
// Gets the specific subtype
$fieldable = $field->fieldable;
I'm tinkering with Neo4j 2.3.0 and Laravel 5.1 using NeoEloquent. I've set up a couple of dummy nodes and some relationships between them:
image of Neo4j model - apologies, I cannot insert images directly yet :)
So articles can use a template. The inverse of this relationship is that a template is used by an article.
I've set up the classes like so:
Class Template extends Model
{
public function articles()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Article', 'USED_BY');
}
}
And:
Class Article extends Model
{
public function template()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\Template', 'USES');
}
}
So far, so good, I think.
I have a page where I am wanting to eventually list all of the articles in the system, along with some useful metadata, like the template each ones uses. For this, I have set something up in the controller:
$articles = array();
foreach (Article::with('template')->get() as $article) {
array_push($articles, $article);
}
return $articles;
Not the most elegant, but it should return the data for both the article and it's associated template. However:
[{"content":"Some test content","title":"Test Article","id":28,"template":null},{"content":"Some flibble content","title":"Flibble","id":31,"template":null}]
So the question is - why is this returning null?
More interestingly, if I set up the relationship to the same thing in BOTH directions, it returns the values. i.e. if I change the USED_BY to USES, then the data is returned, but this doesn't make sense from an architectural point of view - a template does not 'use' an article.
So what am I missing?
More interestingly, if I set up the relationship to the same thing in BOTH directions, it returns the values.
That's correct, because this is how it operates. It is worth knowing that the relationship methods you have defined represent the relationship itself, which means for both models Template and Article to target the USED_BY relationship from any side it has to be the same in articles() and template.
The solution would be to use something like USES (or any notion you like) on both sides. This reference should help you make good decisions regarding your relationships.
On the other hand, if you still wish to have different relations on the sides then kindly note that in your model (image) both relationships are in outgoing direction. i.e. Fibble-[:USES]->Template and Template-[:USED_BY]->Fibble which means template() should be an outgoing relationship such as hasOne instead of belongsTo which is incoming.