Trying to get property of non-object in Laravel Relationship - laravel

Question

I have two tables in my database, an Articles table and a Users table. An Article is posted by a user and a foreign key exists called 'created_by' referring to the 'user_id' field in the Users table.
My Laravel models are as follows:
User model
class User extends Model
{
use Notifiable;
protected $primaryKey = 'user_id';
public function articles()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Article', 'created_by', 'user_id');
}
}
Article Model
class Article extends Model
{
protected $primaryKey = 'article_id';
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User', 'created_by' 'user_id');
}
}
I have a view dashboard which displays all the articles and the name of the person who posted it and their image.
Dashboard Controller
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\User;
use App\Article;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class DashboardController extends Controller
{
public function index (Request $request)
{
if($request->session()->get('username')) {
$articles = Article::all();
return view('dashboard', compact('articles'));
}
else
return redirect('login');
}
}
And finally the section of my view I'm getting the 'Trying to get property of non-object' error for.
#foreach($articles as $article)
<div class="row">
<div class="col-lg-1"></div>
<div class="col-lg-9">
<div class="panel panel-info">
<div class="panel-heading">
<h3 class="panel-title">{{ $article->title }} </h3>
</div>
<div class="panel-body">
<p>
{{ $article->content }}
<br><br> - {{ $article->user->first_name }}
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="col-lg-1"><center><br><br>
<img src="{{ asset('images/people/$article->user->image') }}" class="img-circle" alt="Person"></center>
</div>
</div><br><br>
#endforeach
It seems to be the $article->user->first_name that I am having trouble with. If I type $article->user alone, the page will load but nothing appears in that area.
Any ideas, I have been searching for solutions for the last two hours.

Answer 1

I think you need to specify that you want users to load with with the articles, like $articles = Article::with('user')->all();
Drop a dd($articles) right before the return statement and you'll see what you're actually dealing with.

Answer 2

$articles = Article::with('user')->get();
Edit
Try to check also if $article->user is null in the view because if there is no user assigned for an article then you will get "trying to get property of non object" error
so give an extra check when you access user's data.
{{ $article->user !== null ? $article->user->first_name : 'User Not Found' }}
Do this for user photo also

Answer 3

Please edit your controller, pls mark as answered thx.
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\User;
use App\Article;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class DashboardController extends Controller
{
public function index (Request $request, Article $articles)
{
if($request->session()->get('username')) {
return view('dashboard')->with('articles', $articles->all() );
}
else
return redirect('login');
}
}