Laravel 5.4 belongsToMany relationship returns empty - laravel

Question

In Laravel 5.4 I'am trying to set up a Many To Many Relation. but the belongsToMany returns empty! Here's my migrations and models.
botusers Table:
public function up()
{
Schema::create('botusers', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('t_id');
$table->string('first_name');
$table->string('last_name');
$table->string('username');
$table->string('mobile');
$table->timestamps();
});
}
candidates Table:
public function up()
{
Schema::create('candidates', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->string('name');
$table->string('token');
$table->string('degree');
$table->integer('age');
$table->text('desc');
$table->string('photo_url');
$table->string('cv_url');
$table->timestamps();
});
}
Third table, botuser_candidate Table:
public function up()
{
Schema::create('botuser_candidate', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->integer('botuser_id');
$table->integer('candidate_id');
});
}
and the votes() method in Botuser Model:
public function votes()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Candidate::class)->get();
}
When I fire the votes() method returns an empty array. and I also tested bellow method too,
public function votes()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Candidate::class,'botuser_candidate','botuser_id','candidate_id')->get();
}
What I missed here? What should I do?
Edit:
I also added the foreign keys to the relation but the result is still same!

Answer 1

I would suggest you remove the get() method on the belongsToMany
Then query the database with
$c=new App\Candidate;
$c->with('votes')->get()
if you still want to use $c->votes() then you would have to do some changes to your functions. Lets use scope to achieve it.
public function candidates()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Candidate::class,'botuser_candidate','botuser_id','candidate_id');
}
public function scopeVotes($query)
{
return $query->with("candidates")->get();
}
Then now we can call $v->votes() and it should return all your record.
Calling get() directly on belongsToMany method will return empty array.