Expand the User Model - php

Question

I'm trying to expand the User Model with another Table (profile) to get a profile-picture, position, etc.
Can I override the index() function of the User Model to do that?
Current Model-Code:
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
use Laravel\Sanctum\HasApiTokens;
class User extends Authenticatable
{
use HasApiTokens, HasFactory, Notifiable;
protected $fillable = [
'name',
'email',
'password',
'user_group'
];
protected $hidden = [
'password',
'remember_token',
];
protected $casts = [
'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
];
}

Answer 1

What you are trying to do is setting up a relationship between the User Model and a new Profile Model. To do this you first need to create a Model Profile and it's associated Tabble profiles
php artisan make:model Profile --migration
In database\migrations there should be a file called something like that 2022_11_28_223831_create_profiles_table.php
Now you need to add a foreign key which indicates to which User this profile belongs.
public function up()
{
Schema::create('profiles', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
// $table->string('path_to_picture')
// user id
$table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained()->onDelete('cascade');
$table->timestamps();
});
}
Now in your User Model add the following function
public function profile()
{
return $this->hasOne(Profile::class);
}
And in your Profile Model
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
}
Run php artisan migrate and everything should work as expected
If you want to test if the relationship works as expected create a new TestCase with
php artisan make:test ProfileUserRelationTest
In tests\Feature\ProfileUserRelationTest.php
<?php
namespace Tests\Feature;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\WithFaker;
use Tests\TestCase;
use App\Models\User;
use App\Models\Profile;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
class ProfileUserRelationTest extends TestCase
{
use RefreshDatabase;
public function test_the_relation_between_user_and_profile_works()
{
$user = User::create([
'name' => 'John Doe',
'email' => 'jd#example.com',
'password' => Hash::make('password'),
]);
$profile = new Profile();
$profile->user_id = $user->id;
$profile->save();
$this->assertEquals($user->id, $profile->user->id);
$this->assertEquals($user->name, $profile->user->name);
$this->assertEquals($profile->id, $user->profile->id);
}
}
Now you can run php artisan test to see if everything works.
Be carefull this will refresh your database! So don't test in production.
Output should something like this
PASS Tests\Unit\ExampleTest
✓ that true is true
PASS Tests\Feature\ExampleTest
✓ the application returns a successful response
PASS Tests\Feature\ProfileUserRelationTest
✓ the relation between user and profile works
Tests: 3 passed
Time: 0.35s
Learn more about Relationships in Laravel: https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/eloquent-relationships
Learn more about migrations: https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/migrations
Alternative
$user = User::create([
'name' => 'John Doe',
'email' => 'jd#example.com',
'password' => Hash::make('password'),
]);
$user->profile()->create(...); // replace the ... with the things you want to insert you dont need to add the user_id since it will automatically added it. It will still work like the one above.