Laravel - Seeding Many-to-Many Relationship - laravel

Question

I have a users table and a roles table that has a many-to-many relationship. These two tables are connected to a junction table called role_user.
This is a model of the tables and its connections.
Below are the Models in my Laravel project:
User
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class User extends Model
{
public function roles()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('App\Role');
}
}
Role
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Role extends Model
{
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('App\User');
}
}
Below is the Factory file in the Laravel project:
$factory->define(App\User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
'name' => $faker->name,
'email' => $faker->unique()->safeEmail,
'password' => $password ?: $password = bcrypt('secret'),
];
});
$factory->define(App\Role::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
'role' => $faker->realText($maxNbChars = 2),
'description' => $faker->realText($maxNbChars = 20),
];
});
Below is the Seed file in the Laravel project:
public function run()
{
factory(App\User::class, 50)->create()->each(function ($u) {
$u->roles()->save(factory(App\Role::class)->make());
});
factory(App\Role::class, 20)->create()->each(function ($u) {
$u->users()->save(factory(App\User::class)->make());
});
}
This should populate the users table and the roles table but how do I go about populating the role_user table? (I don't have a Model file for the junction table.)
I'm very new at this so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use attach() or sync() method on a many-to-many relationship.
There are multiple ways you can approach this. Here one of them:
// Populate roles
factory(App\Role::class, 20)->create();
// Populate users
factory(App\User::class, 50)->create();
// Get all the roles attaching up to 3 random roles to each user
$roles = App\Role::all();
// Populate the pivot table
App\User::all()->each(function ($user) use ($roles) {
$user->roles()->attach(
$roles->random(rand(1, 3))->pluck('id')->toArray()
);
});

Answer 2

Another way is to use saveMany() function
public function run()
{
factory(App\User::class,3)->create();
$roles = factory(App\Role::class,3)->create();
App\User::All()->each(function ($user) use ($roles){
$user->roles()->saveMany($roles);
});
}

Answer 3

A much cleaner method can be: after you define the factory for App\User and App\Roles you can call the afterCreating method like this:
$factory->define(App\User::class, function ...);
$factory->define(App\Role::class, function ...);
$factory->afterCreating(App\User::class, function ($row, $faker) {
$row->roles()->attach(rand(1,20));
});
Then in Seeds you first create the roles, then the users
public function run()
{
factory(App\Role::class, 20)->create();
factory(App\User::class, 50)->create();
}
Now you have 50 users each of them with one role attached.

Answer 4

Just for a seeder you can use something like this:
for ($i = 0; $i < 50; $i++) {
$user = factory(App\User::class)->create();
$role = factory(App\Role::class)->create();
DB::table('role_user')->insert([
'user_id' => $user->id,
'role_id' => $role->id
]);
}
But normally you need to define relation like has many through https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/eloquent-relationships#has-many-through
Then you will be able to use:
$user->roles()->save($role);

Answer 5

Better to use this structure:
App\Role::factory()->count(20)->create();
// Populate users
App\User::factory()->count(50)->create();
// Getting all roles and saving them to variable is not too good idea.
// Instead, get count of rows.
$rolesCount = App\Role::count();
// Populate the pivot table
App\User::all()->each(function ($user) use ($rolesCount) {
$user->roles()->attach(
App\Role::all()->random(rand(1, $rolesCount))->pluck('id')->toArray()
);
});