Laravel - Pivot table - No join throws an error - laravel

Question

I've a question regarding how Laravel handles pivot tables:
Summarizing: 2 models, Project and Stage.
Project
+----+----------+
| id | name |
+----+----------+
| 1 | Project1 |
| 2 | Project2 |
+----+----------+
Stage
+----+--------+
| id | name |
+----+--------+
| 1 | Stage1 |
| 2 | Stage2 |
| 3 | Stage3 |
+----+--------+
And a pivot table
+----+------------+----------+------------+-----------+
| id | project_id | stage_id | date | info |
+----+------------+----------+------------+-----------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 2014-12-20 | Moreinfo1 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2014-12-21 | Moreinfo2 |
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 2014-12-22 | Moreinfo3 |
| 4 | 1 | 3 | 2014-12-23 | Moreinfo4 |
+----+------------+----------+------------+-----------+
I'm showing the info:
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+
| project | last_stage | date | info |
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+
| Project1 | 3 | 2014-12-23 | Moreinfo4 |
| Project2 | 1 | 2014-12-22 | Moreinfo3 |
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+
And everything works fine; however, if I add a new Project (as there's no info on the pivot table), I get the annoying:
Whoops, looks like something went wrong.
Is there any way to indicate that, in case of null, the row should be left empty (without an error)? I'd like to get:
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+
| project | last_stage | date | info |
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+
| Project1 | 3 | 2014-12-23 | Moreinfo4 |
| Project2 | 1 | 2014-12-22 | Moreinfo3 |
| Project3 | | | |
+----------+------------+------------+-----------+

Answer 1

The problem is the call in your view:
{{ $project->stages_accomp()->orderBy('date', 'desc')->first()->pivot->date }}
When you have a project that has no stage assigned ->first() will return null.
And PHP doesn't like it if you want to access a property of a non-object (in this case null)
You need to add a little check like this:
#if($stage = $project->stages_accomp()->orderBy('date', 'desc')->first())
{{ $stage->pivot->date }}
#endif
It will make sure the first() returns a truthy value (not null) and will also assign the value to the variable $stage.