Bdtjtk

I'm new to laravel/eloquent and so far very much enjoying them, but I'm having trouble getting belongsTo and hasMany working.
I've read through countless issues others have had and haven't found a solution that solves it for me.

I have a "Page" model and a "Category" model. Here is the definition for the tables:

Schema::create('pages', function (Blueprint $table) {

    $table->increments('id');

    $table->string('name');

    $table->timestamps();

});



Schema::create('categories', function (Blueprint $table) {

    $table->increments('id');

    $table->integer('page_id');

    $table->foreign('page_id')->references('id')->on('pages');

    $table->string('name');

    $table->timestamps();

});

Here is my Page model:

namespace App;



use IlluminateDatabaseEloquentModel;



class Page extends Model

{

    public function categories()

    {

        return $this->hasMany('AppCategory');

    }

}

Here is my Category model:

namespace App;



use IlluminateDatabaseEloquentModel;



class Category extends Model

{

    public function page() 

    {

        return $this->belongsTo('AppPage');

    }

}

Here are the results from some tinkering:

> php artisan cache:clear

Application cache cleared!

> php artisan tinker

>>> AppCategory::find(1)

=> AppCategory {#2916

     id: "1",

     page_id: "1",

     name: "First Category",

     created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

     updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

   }

>>> AppCategory::find(1)->page()

=> IlluminateDatabaseEloquentRelationsBelongsTo {#2918}

>>> AppPage::find(1)

=> AppPage {#2902

     id: "1",

     name: "First Page",

     created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

     updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

   }

>>> AppPage::find(1)->categories()

=> IlluminateDatabaseEloquentRelationsHasMany {#2922}

>>>

I'm getting my objects just fine, but when I try to pull the relationship I'm just getting what seem like null objects:

=> IlluminateDatabaseEloquentRelationsBelongsTo {#2918}

=> IlluminateDatabaseEloquentRelationsHasMany {#2922}

If I swap out my page() and categories() functions for ones like these all works well:

public function page() 

{

    return AppPage::find($this->page_id);

}



public function categories()

{

    return AppCategory::where('page_id', $this->id)->get();

}

Here are those results:

> php artisan cache:clear

Application cache cleared!

> php artisan tinker

Psy Shell v0.9.9 (PHP 7.3.0 — cli) by Justin Hileman

>>> AppPage::find(1)

=> AppPage {#2916

     id: "1",

     name: "First Page",

     created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

     updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

   }

>>> AppPage::find(1)->categories()

=> IlluminateDatabaseEloquentCollection {#2918

     all: [

       AppCategory {#2921

         id: "1",

         page_id: "1",

         name: "First Category",

         created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

         updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

       },

       AppCategory {#2922

         id: "2",

         page_id: "1",

         name: "Second Category",

         created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.480",

         updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.480",

       },

       AppCategory {#2923

         id: "3",

         page_id: "1",

         name: "Third Category",

         created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.623",

         updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.623",

       },

     ],

   }

>>> AppCategory::find(1)

=> AppCategory {#2904

     id: "1",

     page_id: "1",

     name: "First Category",

     created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

     updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.347",

   }

>>> AppCategory::find(1)->page()

=> AppPage {#2921

     id: "1",

     name: "First Page",

     created_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

     updated_at: "2018-12-30 03:18:07.220",

   }

>>>

EDIT:

I found if I add ->get() I see the data while tinkering as I was expecting:

public function page() 

{

    return $this->belongsTo('AppPage')->get();

}

However, none of the examples I've seen show anyone doing this. Am I just misunderstanding how this is supposed to work? I would expect while tinkering just doing $page->categories(); would give me the categories without needing to do $page->categories()->get();

Try this.

    Schema::create('categories', function (Blueprint $table) {

    $table->increments('id');

    $table->integer('page_id')->unsigned();

    $table->foreign('page_id')->references('id')->on('pages');

    $table->string('name');

    $table->timestamps();

});

Ah, as usual I found this to be a simple fix.

Calling $page->categories as a property gives me the data

Calling $page->categories() as a function returns an object I can continue chaining further commands to.

In case it helps anyone, I found the solution by revisiting the extremely helpful laracasts videos. Specifically the episode on eloquent relationships where what I just posted is clearly explained:
https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-from-scratch-2018/episodes/16