Accessing and displaying pivot table data - laravel

Question

Theory:
Users can attend many events and many events can be attended by many users. Therefore, I have two many-to-many relationships within my models, linking to a pivot table (event_user). On attending each event, I want to be able to access the pivot table data (event_user) to see if they're already attending.
event_user:
--id
--event_id
--user_id
For example, my seed data is:
user 1 attending both event 2 and 3. I want to be able to show this within a view.
The closest I have got is (logically):
public function index()
{
$id = Auth::user()->id;
$attending = myApp\Event::find($id)->event;
var_dump($attending); **But this var_dump returns NULL, but $id returns the correct ID.**
$events = myApp\Event::all();
$this->layout->content = View::make('events.index')->with('events', $events);
}
My aim is to disable the 'attend' button, on any event where they are already attending, only leaving the attend-able events available!
Any help would be hugely appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Any additional code which you may find necessary:
Events Model:
<?php
namespace myApp;
use Eloquent;
class Event extends Eloquent {
public function consultant()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('myApp\Consultant');
}
public function location()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('myApp\Location');
}
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('myApp\User');
}
}
User Model:
<?php
namespace myApp;
use Eloquent;
use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableInterface;
class User extends Eloquent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {
public function event()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Event');
}
public function practice()
{
return $this->belongToMany('Practice');
}
index.blade.php (showing the event list)
<div class="panel panel-success">
<!-- Default panel contents -->
<div class="panel-heading"><strong>Events</strong></div>
<!-- <div class="panel-body">
</div> -->
<!-- Table -->
<table class="table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Title</th>
<th>Date</th>
<th>Presenter</th>
<th>Location</th>
<th></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach($events as $event)
<tr>
<td>{{ $event->title }}</td>
<td>{{ date("j F Y", strtotime($event->date)) }}</td>
<td>{{ $event->consultant()->first()->title }} {{ $event->consultant()->first()->surname }}</td>
<td>{{ $event->location()->first()->address_1 }}</td>
<td><button type="button" class="btn btn-info">Attend</button></td>
</tr>
#endforeach
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</table>

Answer 1

I think you're going about this the wrong way, that or I have misunderstood.
Firstly, you're trying to find an event with the same primary key as the currently authenticated user, which isn't correct, although it's an easy hole to fall down.
$id = Auth::user()->id;
$attending = myApp\Event::find($id)->event;
// equivalent of: SELECT * FROM `events` WHERE `id` = ?
Instead you'll want to do this
$id = Auth::user()->id;
$attending = myApp\Event::where('user_id', $id)->get();
// equivalent of: SELECT * FROM `events` WHERE `user_id` = ? (user_id insted of events.id)
That being said, surely the user events can be accessed by just calling the event property on the auth user?
$user = Auth::user();
$attending = $user->event;
To take this one step further, and make it so that you can check inside the foreach loop, you could advanced the above code to look like the following
$user = Auth::user();
$attending = $user->event->lists('id');
This will make an array of ids from the returned events that you need to assign to the view
$this->layout->content = View::make('events.index', array('events' => $events, 'attending' => $attending));
Now you can freely access it in your foreach
#foreach($events as $event)
<tr>
<td>{{ $event->title }}</td>
<td>{{ date("j F Y", strtotime($event->date)) }}</td>
<td>{{ $event->consultant()->first()->title }} {{ $event->consultant()->first()->surname }}</td>
<td>{{ $event->location()->first()->address_1 }}</td>
<td>
#if (!in_array($event->id, $attending))
<button type="button" class="btn btn-info">Attend</button>
#endif
</td>
</tr>
#endforeach
Also, seeing as Event is a reserved Alias (unless you've modified the config, which I wouldn't recommend), you'll want to specify the namespace in the relationship declaration within User
public function event()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('myApp\Event');
}
As a final point, it's not an issue as such, but in my own code I try to name relationships that have the potential to return multiple objects in the plural, so it would be public function events();.