Laravel 4: A better way to represent this db structure/relationship within laravel - laravel

Question

I have the following db table set up
+--------------+ +--------------+ +-----------------------+
| users | | clients | | user_clients |
+--------------+ +--------------+ +----------------------+
| id | | id | | usersid |
| name | | name | | clientid |
| authid | | email | +----------------------+
| (plus) | | (plus) |
+-------------+ +-------------+
I have set up the a relationship table [b]user_clients[/b] with foreign keys to the relevant db, so userid is link to users->id and clientid is linked to clients->id.
Dependant on the Users Authid is how many clients are linked:
Authid 1: User can only have one client associated to them.
Authid 2: User can only have one to many clients associated to them
Authid 3: User has access to ALL clients.
So as i am new to this relationship side of laravel currently i would do a lot of querying to get some details eg:
I would done something like:
$userClient =UsersClients::select('clientid')->where('userid','=',$userid)->get();
Then I would probably loop through the result to then get each client details and output to the page.
foreach($userClient as $i ->$cleint){
echo '<div>' .$cleint->name . '</div>';
........
}
Would this be an old way and could it be handled better??
----------------EDIT---------------
i have managed to sort it as the following:
User Model:
public function clients() {
return $this->hasMany('UsersClients','userid');
}
User Controller
$selectedUserClients = User::find(24)->clients;
I get the same out come as my previous result as in client id's 1 & 2, but now how to get the client details from the actual client db basically is there an easier way that the following:
foreach ($selectedUserClients as $key => $client) {
$clientInfo = Client::select('id','clientname')->where('id','=',$client->clientid)->get();
echo $clientInfo[0]->clientname;
}

Answer 1

The users_clients table needs it's own ID column in order for many-to-many relationships to work.
On your User Model, try
public function clients()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Client','user_clients','userid','clientid');
}
Now you can find the clients assigned to each individual user with
User::find(24)->clients.
You could also do the inverse on your Client model...
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('User','user_clients','clientid','userid');
}
This would allow you to find all the users belonging to each client
Client::find(42)->users;
I would also like to mention that it's best practice to use snake case for your id's such as user_id or client_id.
Your table names should be plural. users and clients.
Your pivot table should be snake_case, in alphabetical order, and singular. client_user.
This would make working with Eloquent much easier because it's less you have to worry about when setting up the relationships and it might be easier for someone else to help you work on your project.
Instead of return $this->belongsToMany('Client','user_clients','userid','clientid'); all you'd have to do is return $this->belongsToMany('Client'); which should keep your app much cleaner and easier to read.