CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqllaravel-4
Sonique
Sonique

Reputation: 7110

Laravel - model for table with only foreign keys (Pivot Table)

I need to implement model for table with only two foreign keys. In my db I have tables like this:

product (id_product, ...)
category_to_product (FK id_category, FK id_product)
category (id_category, ...)

How to manage this connections in Laravel? Should I implement model for merge table and how it may looks? category_to_product table does not represent entity(/model) and have only design-relation property.

database-model

Database Migrations

CategoryToProduct

Schema::create('category_to_product', function(Blueprint $table)
{
    $table->integer('id_category')->unsigned();
    $table->foreign('id_category')
          ->references('id_category')
          ->on('categories')
          ->onDelete('cascade');
    $table->integer('id_product')->unsigned();
    $table->foreign('id_product')
          ->references('id_product')
          ->on('products')
          ->onDelete('cascade');
});

Products

Schema::create('products', function(Blueprint $table)
{
  $table->increments('id_product');
  // ...
});

Categories

Schema::create('categories', function(Blueprint $table)
{
  $table->increments('id_category');
  // ...
});

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3831

Answers (2)

Daniel Gasser
Daniel Gasser

Reputation: 5133

Do the following:

In the model Category:

public function products(){
    return $this->belongsToMany('Category');
}

In the model Product:

public function categories(){
    return $this->belongsToMany('Category', 'category_to_product');
}

In the model CategoryToProduct:

public function categories() {
    return $this->belongsTo('Category');
}

public function products() {
    return $this->belongsTo('Product');
}

Note the naming of these methods! Those are the same as the DB-table names. See ChainList's answer.

Upvotes: 1

ChainList
ChainList

Reputation: 1208

@pc-shooter is right about creating methods.

But you still have to create the pivot table with your migration first

Schema::create('products', function(Blueprint $table)
{
    $table->increments('id')
    $table->string('name');
}
Schema::create('categories', function(Blueprint $table)
{
    $table->increments('id')
    $table->string('name');
}

Then your pivot table

Schema::create('category_product', function(Blueprint $table)
{
    $table->integer('category_id')
    $table->foreign('category_id')->references('id')->on('categories');

    $table->integer('product_id');
    $table->foreign('product_id')->references('id')->on('products');

    // And finally, the indexes (Better perfs when fetching data on that pivot table)
    $table->index(['category_id', 'product_id'])->unique(); // This index has to be unique
}

Upvotes: 3

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