How to update foreign key ide value in Laravel Eloquent? - php

Question

I'm quite new to Laravel and I was not able to find the answer to this problem neither on Laravel docs, nor here.
I guess it's just a matter of how to search for it, cause I'm pretty sure it's a common case.
I have two models in relationship (this is a simplified case), I retrieve the info I need through a Resource file, but I'm not able to understand how to properly store or update info.
Here's a code example:
Models\Company.php
class Company extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'name', 'blablabla', 'country_id', 'blablabla2',
];
public function country() {
return $this->belongsTo(Country::class);
}
}
Models\Country.php
class Country extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'code', 'name', 'prefix', 'tax_code_id',
];
public function companies() {
return $this->hasMany(Company::class);
}
}
Then I have a CompanyController file to manage API requests:
Controllers\CompanyController.php
class CompanyController extends BaseController
{
public function index()
{
$companies = Company::paginate();
$response = CompanyResource::collection($companies)->response()->getData(true);
return $this->sendResponse($response, 'Companies retrieved successfully');
}
public function store(Request $request)
{
$input = $request->all();
$validator = Validator::make($input, $this->validation_rules);
if($validator->fails()){
return $this->sendError('Validation error.', $validator->errors());
}
$company = Company::create($input);
return $this->sendResponse($company->toArray(), 'Company added successfully.');
}
}
...
public function update(Request $request, Company $company)
{
$input = $request->all();
$validator = Validator::make($input, $this->validation_rules);
if($validator->fails()){
return $this->sendError('Validation error.', $validator->errors());
}
$company->update($input);
return $this->sendResponse($company->toArray(), 'Company updated successfully.');
}
And here the CompanyResource I'm using to display info as I need.
Resources/CompanyResource.php
class CompanyResource extends JsonResource
{
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'id' => $this->id,
'name' => $this->name,
'blablabla' => $this->blablabla,
'country' => $this->country,
'blablabla2' => $this->blablabla2,
];
}
}
So when retrieving Companies (or single company) I get a nested JSON:
{
"id": "1",
"name": "something",
"blablabla": "blablabla",
"country": {
"id": "100",
"code": "MA",
"name": "Mars",
"prefix": "123",
"tax_code_id": "#$%"
},
"blablabla2": "blablabla2"
}
If I create or update a new company I send a payload that has the same structure of what I'm getting above, but if I edit country id value my company model doesn't get it.
PUT Api/companies/1
{
"name": "something",
"blablabla": "blablabla3",
"country": {
"id": "200",
"code": "JU",
"name": "Jupiter",
"prefix": "456",
"tax_code_id": "#=%"
},
"blablabla2": "blablabla2"
}
I'm expecting to update country_id field in companies table for record 1 so that it matches payload (so going from 100 to 200), but it's not happening.
I could edit frontend logic in order to send only country_id in payload since I'm not going to update countries table and all that additional info is redundant, but I'd like to know how to manage it in controller with Laravel.
Would you mind helping me? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you want it to work with the code now, you need to have country_id in the root JSON object you are sending. As this is the way you would fill the id. This is not the best approach in my opinion, but this is why your update is not working at the moment.
{
"name": "something",
"blablabla": "blablabla3",
"country_id": 200,
...
I actually like the approach of sending complete objects. Commonly to fill id's is not good, as it can interfere with the way relations work. Laravel will set your relationships when you associate, if not you are not guaranteed to have the correct relationship after the fill.
Therefor i would fetch out the id and associate the country object with the company. In a logic similar to this.
// only fill non relation fields, fill used as save is needed after associate()
$company->fill($request->only(['name', 'blabla']));
$company->country()->associate(Country::find($request->get('country')['id']));
//associate does not save
$company->save();

Answer 2

I wrote a gist for this years ago that can relate any two models regardless of their relationship type. You just need to supply it with the name of the relationship method: https://gist.github.com/kmuenkel/055f107139d904e30810bf53750d9c6e