Laravel 5.8: Display eloquent items sorted based on timestamp - php

Question

I'm not sure, how this is called, so I'll explain it as good as possible.
I've a ticket system, where I display all comments in one section. In a different section, I display related information like "Supporter changed", "Ticket title changed", "Status of ticket changed" and so on.
Current rendered (unstyled) HTML: https://jsfiddle.net/2afzxhd8/
I would like to merge these two sections into one, that those related information are displayed between the comments of the ticket. Everything (comments + related information) should be displayed sorted based on the created_at timestamp.
New target rendered (unstyled) HTML: https://jsfiddle.net/4osL9k0n/
The ticket system has in my case these relevant eloquent models (and tables):
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
class Tickets extends Model
{
use SoftDeletes;
protected $fillable = [
'tracking_number', 'customer_id', 'category_id',
'priority_id', 'subject', 'status_id', 'is_done',
'supporter_id'
];
protected $hidden = [
];
protected $dates = ['deleted_at'];
public function status() {
return $this->belongsTo(TicketStatuses::class, 'status_id');
}
public function priority() {
return $this->belongsTo(TicketPriorities::class, 'priority_id');
}
public function category() {
return $this->belongsTo(TicketCategories::class, 'category_id');
}
public function supporter() {
return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'supporter_id');
}
public function operations() {
return $this->hasMany(TicketOperations::class, 'ticket_id');
}
public function comments() {
return $this->hasMany(TicketComments::class, 'ticket_id');
}
}
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
class TicketComments extends Model
{
use SoftDeletes;
protected $fillable = [
'ticket_id', 'text', 'user_id', 'is_html',
'email_reply', 'internal_only'
];
protected $hidden = [
];
protected $dates = ['deleted_at'];
public function ticket() {
return $this->belongsTo(Tickets::class, 'id', 'ticket_id');
}
public function user() {
return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'user_id');
}
}
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
class TicketOperations extends Model
{
use SoftDeletes;
protected $fillable = [
'ticket_id', 'user_id', 'ticket_activity_id',
'old_value', 'new_value'
];
protected $hidden = [
];
protected $dates = ['deleted_at'];
public function ticket() {
return $this->belongsTo(Tickets::class, 'ticket_id');
}
public function activity() {
return $this->belongsTo(TicketActivities::class, 'ticket_activity_id');
}
public function user() {
return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'user_id');
}
}
Please don't care about the CSS - it is styled in my case. It's just not relevant here.
Any idea, how I need to update my view to be able to build my target HTML?

Answer 1

As per my understanding, you have data that retrieved from multiple models.
So what you can do is to, merge the informations into a new array:
For example, consider the data regarding the ticket history is being stored in an array named:
$arrTicketHistory;
And consider, that the information regarding the ticket updates is being stored in an array named:
$arrTicketUpdates;
Merge these two arrays and assign the result in another array, say:
$arrDatesAndIDs;
Now try sorting the array $arrDatesAndIDs on the basis of timestamp i.e. created_at. Then display the result with a simple for loop.
You can add a custom parameter in the arrays $arrTicketUpdates and $arrDatesAndIDs, just for the sake of uniqueness. It might help you to identify which type of information it is, regarding the ticket.
You can use the array function array_msort(), a php function, to sort a multidimensional array.

Answer 2

I just found this answer, but this one has one big issue: It overwrites in worst-case some objects with different objects and this results in possible missing objects in the collection.
From the Laravel documentation: Collections:
The merge method merges the given array or collection with the original collection. If a string key in the given items matches a string key in the original collection, the given items's value will overwrite the value in the original collection.
Due to this, I had to update the logic to this:
$ticket = Tickets::where('tracking_number', '=', $request->tracking_number)->first();
$comments = $ticket->comments;
$operations = $ticket->operations;
$history_unsorted = new Collection();
$history_unsorted = $history_unsorted->merge($comments);
$history_unsorted = $history_unsorted->merge($operations);
$history = $history_unsorted->sortBy('created_at');
This avoids, that the original collection gets overwritten.
With this, I can simply loop over $history:
#foreach($history as $history_item)
#if ($history_item instanceof App\TicketOperations)
<!-- Ticket Operation -->
#else
<!-- Ticket Comment (Text) -->
#endif
#endforeach