Duplicated value in my JSON response in Laravel - php

Question

I created method show() in controller to return name and timestamps + all permissions this role has. Spatie/Laravel-Permission is responsible for associating users with permissions and roles in my API.
public function show($name)
{
$role = Role::findByName($name);
return response()->json([
$role,
$role->permissions
]);
}
Output:
[
{
"name": "root",
"created_at": "2019-04-08 19:41:49",
"updated_at": "2019-04-08 19:41:49",
"permissions": [
{
"name": "users.store"
},
{
"name": "users.destroy"
},
{
"name": "users.show.id"
},
{
"name": "users.update.id"
},
{
"name": "users.show.name"
},
{
"name": "users.update.name"
}
]
},
[
// This is duplicate
{
"name": "users.store"
},
{
"name": "users.destroy"
},
{
"name": "users.show.id"
},
{
"name": "users.update.id"
},
{
"name": "users.show.name"
},
{
"name": "users.update.name"
}
]
]
As you can see there is useless duplicate of permissions.
But if I will remove $role from my response
return response()->json([
// $role,
$role->permissions
]);
Everything is fine
[
[
{
"name": "users.store"
},
{
"name": "users.destroy"
},
{
"name": "users.show.id"
},
{
"name": "users.update.id"
},
{
"name": "users.show.name"
},
{
"name": "users.update.name"
}
]
]
And when I want to return only $role without permissions like this:
return response()->json([
$role,
// $role->permissions
]);
My output is:
[
{
"name": "root",
"created_at": "2019-04-08 19:41:49",
"updated_at": "2019-04-08 19:41:49"
}
]

Answer 1

When you call $role->permissions in your response, permissions are loaded into the $role object, and then serialized to json. So basically you're sending $role object with loaded permissions, and you're also sending permissions themselves.
Try:
public function show($name)
{
$role = Role::findByName($name)->load('permissions');
return response()->json([
$role
]);
}

Answer 2

you can use Eloquent: API Resources here
public function show($name)
{
return new RoleResource(Role::findByName($name));
}
and RoleResource like this:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Resources;
use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;
class RoleResource extends JsonResource
{
/**
* Transform the resource into an array.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #return array
*/
public function toArray($request)
{
return [
'name' => $this->name,
'created_at' => $this->created_at,
'updated_at' => $this->updated_at,
'permissions' => $this-> permissions,
];
}
}