Laravel 5 multi level category - laravel-5

Question

i currently i have 2 tables category & subcategory and everything works just fine, but i need another level of sub category which will be like category->sub->sub for that matter i tried to find a reasonable solution and i end up with bunch of packages to handle that for me.
now the question is
do i have to delete my category tables and their relations to my
another modes before i try any package or i should just add package top of my current tables?
what is the best package for my purpose base on your experience?
thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You don't need to depend on packages to implement this.
You can design your categories table like following:
|----------|------------|---------------|
| id | name | category_id |
|----------|------------|---------------|
Here category_id is nullable field and foreign key referenced to id of categories table.
For category category_id field will be NULL and for sub-category category_id will be it's parent category id. For sub sub category, category_id will be parent sub category id.
In model, you can write relation like following:
Category.php
/**
* Get the sub categories for the category.
*/
public function categories()
{
return $this->hasMany(Category::class);
}
Now you can get your sub categories like $category->categories.
N.B: You don't need the subcategory table, Only one table will do the work.
Update- Show product categories
Update Category.php:
/**
* Get the parent category that owns the category.
*/
public function parent()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
}
In Product.php:
/**
* Get the category that owns the product.
*/
public function category()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
}
Now, you need to get product category and all of its parents. It'll be an array of categories from parents to child. Then you can show as you wish.
$category = $product->category;
$categories = [$category];
while (!is_null($category) && !is_null($category = $category->parent)) {
$categories.unshift($category);
}
// $categories = ['parent category', 'sub category', 'sub sub category' ..]
Show category title sequentially
foreach ($categories as $category) {
echo $category->title . '<br>';
}