laravel resource collection has blank output - laravel

Question

I am trying to get a json output of a collection but all I am getting is a data [].
I have 2 tables.
TABLE:Player ||
id |
name
and
TABLE:FlightTime || id | vehicle | totaltime | player_id (foreign key)
I am trying to get all the flighttime entry for a particular player as a collection.
My FlightTime resource:
class FlightTime extends JsonResource
{
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'vehicle' => $this->vehicle,
'total-time' => $this->totaltime,
];
}
}
And my FlightTimeCollection:
class FlightTimeCollection extends ResourceCollection
{
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'data' => $this->collection,
'test' => 'did this work',
];
}
}
My api route is set as
Route::get('/v1/player/{name}/flights', 'PlayerController#showFlightbyName');
And I have this in my controller:
public function showFlightbyName($name)
{
$pid = Player::select('id')->where('name', $name)->first();
return new FlightTimeCollection(FlightTime::where('player_id', $pid)->get());
}
Now when I visit localhost/api/v1/player/Angel/flights, No error is thrown. But all I am getting is this.
{
"data": [],
"test": "did this work"
}
I just can't figure out what's going on here and what I did wrong.

Answer 1

You should treat the toArray() method in your FliightTimeCollection the same way you treat it in FlightTimeResource. The collection will be automatically wrapped in data => [stuff]'.
So, like this:
class FlightTimeCollection extends ResourceCollection
{
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'vehicle' => $this->vehicle,
'another_field' => $this->field2,
// ...
];
}
}
Result of that would be
{
"data": [
{"vehicle": "some value", "another_field": "some value"},
// ...
],
}

Answer 2

I got it working. $pid is an obj and I needed to get the value out of $pid->id
public function showFlightbyName($name)
{
$pid = Player::select('id')->where('name', $name)->first();
return new FlightTimeCollection(FlightTime::where('player_id', $pid->id)->get());
}