Laravel 5 - deleting child model data - laravel

Question

I have a Model called Campaign which takes the following structure
+----+--------------+-----------------+----------+---------------+--------------+--------------------+----------+-------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | campaignName | userId | clientId | clientContact | contactEmail | campaignObjectives | acNumber | notes | active | created_at | updated_at |
+----+--------------+-----------------+----------+---------------+--------------+--------------------+----------+-------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 1 | test | 7 | 10 | Mr Fakes | 12345 | sdfsdfsd | 12345 | | 0 | 2016-02-29 11:51:59 | 2016-02-29 13:51:28 |
+----+--------------+-----------------+----------+---------------+--------------+--------------------+----------+-------+--------+---------------------+---------------------+
I then have a CampaignTypes Model with the following structure
+----+--------------+-----------------+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | campaignType | creativeArrival | campaignId | created_at | updated_at |
+----+--------------+-----------------+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 14 | Dynamic | 2016-02-26 | 1 | 2016-02-23 16:00:01 | 2016-02-23 16:00:01 |
+----+--------------+-----------------+------------+---------------------+---------------------+
The relationships in these Models is pretty straight forward. A Campaign can have many CampaignTypes and a CamapignType belongs to a Campaign.
In the Campaign schema I have an active column. This is what I use to delete a Campaign. So the destroy method looks like the following
public function destroy(Campaign $campaign)
{
$campaign->update([
'active' => false
]);
Session::flash('flash_message', 'Campaign deleted');
Session::flash('flash_type', 'alert-success');
return Redirect::route('campaigns.index')->with('message', 'Campaign deleted.');
}
Now although it does not cause too many problems, I do not currently set any CampaignTypes row as being deleted if its parent Campaign has been deleted.
What would be the best way to delete the child data without actually deleting it?
Thanks

Answer 1

What you are doing to your Campaign model is called a soft delete and Laravel actually has a nice way to handle that (check out the link). However, it is totally valid to use your own conventions for soft deleting, as you currently are doing when you change the active column to 0. Either way you choose, there is no native Eloquent method to do this automatically, so you'll need a bit of code to modify the parent model.
If you continue to use custom soft deleting (as you are now), it would be easiest to make a custom delete method on the Campaign model. This method will update the record (soft delete it) and also delete any children. You have not specified whether you also want the children models soft deleted or hard deleted, but either one is simple (if you want to soft-delete them, just loop through all and update the relevant column).
Campaign model:
public function deleteAll() {
$campaign = self::find($this->id);
$campaign->update([
'active' => false
]);
//delete children, either hard or soft (use foreach loop on soft)
$campaign->types()->delete();
}
Then you just call that custom method in your controller.
public function destroy(Campaign $campaign)
{
$campaign->deleteAll();
}
If you decide to implement the Laravel convention for soft deleting (basically adding a deleted_at attribute to the model and use a trait) then the model's deleting and deleted events will get triggered, and you can listen for those and respond to them in the model's boot method.
Campaign Model:
protected static function boot() {
parent::boot();
static::deleting(function(campaign) {
//delete children, either hard or soft (use foreach loop on soft)
$campaign->types()->delete();
});
}
And then that gets triggered every time you call delete() on your model, like this:
public function destroy(Campaign $campaign)
{
$campaign->delete();
}