Laravel Form best way to store polymorphic relationship - php

Question

I have a notes model. Which has a polymorphic 'noteable' method that ideally anything can use. Probably up to 5 different models such as Customers, Staff, Users etc can use.
I'm looking for the best possible solution for creating the note against these, as dynamically as possible.
At the moment, i'm adding on a query string in the routes. I.e. when viewing a customer there's an "Add Note" button like so:
route('note.create', ['customer_id' => $customer->id])
In my form then i'm checking for any query string's and adding them to the post request (in VueJS) which works.
Then in my controller i'm checking for each possible query string i.e.:
if($request->has('individual_id'))
{
$individual = Individual::findOrFail($request->individual_id_id);
// store against individual
// return note
}elseif($request->has('customer_id'))
{
$customer = Customer::findOrFail($request->customer_id);
// store against the customer
// return note
}
I'm pretty sure this is not the best way to do this. But, i cannot think of another way at the moment.
I'm sure someone else has come across this in the past too!
Thank you

Answer 1

In order to optimize your code, dont add too many if else in your code, say for example if you have tons of polymorphic relationship then will you add tons of if else ? will you ?,it will rapidly increase your code base.
Try instead the follwing tip.
when making a call to backend do a maping e.g
$identifier_map = [1,2,3,4];
// 1 for Customer
// 2 for Staff
// 3 for Users
// 4 for Individual
and so on
then make call to note controller with noteable_id and noteable_identifier
route('note.create', ['noteable_id' => $id, 'noteable_identifier' => $identifier_map[0]])
then on backend in your controller you can do something like
if($request->has('noteable_id') && $request->has('noteable_identifier'))
{
$noteables = [ 'Customers', 'Staff', 'Users','Individual']; // mapper for models,add more models.
$noteable_model = app('App\\'.$noteables[$request->noteable_identifier]);
$noteable_model::findOrFail($request->noteable_id);
}
so with these lines of code your can handle tons of polymorphic relationship.

Answer 2

Not sure about the best way but I have a similar scenario to yours and this is the code that I use.
my form actions looks like this
action="{{ route('notes.store', ['model' => 'Customer', 'id' => $customer->id]) }}"
action="{{ route('notes.store', ['model' => 'User', 'id' => $user->id]) }}"
etc..
And my controller looks this
public function store(Request $request)
{
// Build up the model string
$model = '\App\Models\\'.$request->model;
// Get the requester id
$id = $request->id;
if ($id) {
// get the parent
$parent = $model::find($id);
// validate the data and create the note
$parent->notes()->create($this->validatedData());
// redirect back to the requester
return Redirect::back()->withErrors(['msg', 'message']);
} else {
// validate the data and create the note without parent association
Note::create($this->validatedData());
// Redirect to index view
return redirect()->route('notes.index');
}
}
protected function validatedData()
{
// validate form fields
return request()->validate([
'name' => 'required|string',
'body' => 'required|min:3',
]);
}

Answer 3

The scenario as I understand is:
-You submit noteable_id from the create-form
-You want to remove if statements on the store function.
You could do that by sending another key in the request FROM the create_form "noteable_type". So, your store route will be
route('note.store',['noteableClass'=>'App\User','id'=>$user->id])
And on the Notes Controller:
public function store(Request $request)
{
return Note::storeData($request->noteable_type,$request->id);
}
Your Note model will look like this:
class Note extends Model
{
public function noteable()
{
return $this->morphTo();
}
public static function storeData($noteableClass,$id){
$noteableObject = $noteableClass::find($id);
$noteableObject->notes()->create([
'note' => 'test note'
]);
return $noteableObject->notes;
}
}
This works for get method on store. For post, form submission will work.

Answer 4

/**
* Store a newly created resource in storage.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Requests\NoteStoreRequest $request
* #return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function store(NoteStoreRequest $request) {
// REF: NoteStoreRequest does the validation
// TODO: Customize this suffix on your own
$suffix = '_id';
/**
* Resolve model class name.
*
* #param string $name
* #return string
*/
function modelNameResolver(string $name) {
// TODO: Customize this function on your own
return 'App\\Models\\'.Str::ucfirst($name);
}
foreach ($request->all() as $key => $value) {
if (Str::endsWith($key, $suffix)) {
$class = modelNameResolver(Str::beforeLast($key, $suffix));
$noteable = $class::findOrFail($value);
return $noteable->notes()->create($request->validated());
}
}
// TODO: Customize this exception response
throw new InternalServerException;
}