Laravel collection eager loading based on nested relation field value - laravel-4

Question

I'm trying to return a Laravel collection object with relations where the resulting collection is based on a nested criteria (ie. a nested model's field value). So it would look something like this:
User -> Category -> Post -> Comments where comment.active == 1
In this case, I want the result to include all of a specific user's categories => posts => comments, where the comment is active. If it is active, it would be nested in the proper hierarchy (Category->Post->Comment). If the comment is not active, any related post and potentially category (if there are no other posts with active comments) should not show up in the collection at all.
I've tried eager loading through with(), load() and filter() with no luck. They will continue to load the relations with empty comment relations. Looking for guidance as to where to research: joins? filters? advanced wheres with nesting?
One attempt:
$user->categories->filter(function($category) {
return $category->isActive();
});
In my model I have all the relationships setup appropriately, and in addition to that I have setup isActive() as follows:
// Category model
public function isActive() {
$active = $this->posts->filter(function($post) {
return $post->isActive();
}
}
// Post model
public function isActive() {
return (boolean) $this->comments()->where('active', 1)->count();
}
This works as expected, but it also includes eagerly loaded nested relationships where comments have an active field of 0. Obviously I'm doing this the wrong way but would appreciate any direction.
Another attempt:
User::with(['categories.posts.comments' => function($q) {
$q->where('active', 1);
}])->find(1);
Unfortunately, this also loads relations (categories and posts) that have no active comments. Replacing the relations with 'categories.posts.isActive' does not work either.

Answer 1

Still confusing because you didn't provide enough code but you may try something like this to get all the users with nested categories.posts.comments without any condition:
$users = User::with('categories.posts.comments')->get();
But it'll give you every thing even when you don't have any comments but to add condition you may try something like this:
// It should return all user models with `categories - posts - active comments`
$users = User::with('categories.posts.activeComments')->get();
Post model:
public function activeComments() {
return $this->hasMany('Comment')->where('active', 1);
}
You may also add more filters using constraints like:
$users = User::with(array('categories.posts.activeComments' => function($query){
$query->whereNull('comments.deleted_at');
}))->get();
But I'm not sure about it, don't know enough about your relationships, so just gave you an idea.