CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpinheritancelaravel-4attributessuperclass
Thomas Simoens
Thomas Simoens

Reputation: 406

Inherited attributes from Eloquent models are null in Laravel 4

Basically my problem is that my models don't inherit the needed attributes from their super class. I already found this question: inherited attributes are null, which addresses the same problem. However the solution did not work for me.

I tried it, but the fillable attributes are just not set. My subclasses don't have access to the attributes.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Extra info (not essential I guess)

My situation is like this: Users (table 'users') can be Advisors (table 'advisors') and/or Customers (table 'customers').

So all the general information about users; first_name, last_name, ... is stored in the users table. Specific information like customer_number or function is stored in the appropriat tables. Both advisors and customers have different relations as they have different roles in the application.

I designed my models so that Advisor and Customer inherit from the super class User:

class User extends Eloquent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {

    protected $fillable = array('email', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'email', 'gender', 'phone_number', 'profile_picture');
    protected $hidden = array('password');
    protected $guarded = array('id', 'password');

    protected $table = 'users';

    ...

}

And my Advisor class:

class Advisor extends User {

    protected $table = 'advisors';
    protected $fillable = array('active', 'function', 'description') ;

    //this does not work!
    public function __construct (array $attributes = array()) {
        // the static function getFillableArray() just returns the fillables array      
        $this->fillable = array_merge ($this->fillable, parent::getFillableArray());
        parent::__construct($attributes);
    }
    ...
 }

I also tried to call the constructor before setting the fillables, as suggested by: this question. Also did not work.

What did work, was writing accessors in the User super class like this:

// Attribute getters - Inheritence not working
public function getFirstNameAttribute($value)
{
    $returnValue = null;
    if($value){
        $returnValue = $value;
    }else{
        $returnValue = User::find($this->id)->first_name;
    }
    return $returnValue;
}

But this is ugly, not efficient and bad for obvious reasons. Is there really no way that I can inherit these attributes? What am I missing?

Thanks in advance

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1135

Answers (1)

har2vey
har2vey

Reputation: 676

An alternative approach to your problem since you've design a single table inheritance structure in your DB, you could've use Laravel eloquent relationship function explained here: http://laravel.com/docs/eloquent#relationships. That'll allow you to access the attribute of the superclass, example:

//in your Advisor model
public function profile()
{
    return $this->belongsTo('User');
}

//to call for advisor's first name
Advisor::find($id)->profile->first_name;

Upvotes: 1

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