dynamic category level in laravel - php

Question

I have 3 level deep categories in my laravel application like
Parent
- Child One
-- Child Two
When I use this nested categories in different parts such as menu, posts details etc. everything is just fine but recently I came cross an issue and I need guide to solve it.
The issue
If any of my posts includes child one or child two level category it's a bit hard to provide correct route path for it, EXAMPLE:
Parent route : site.com/p/slug
Child one route: site.com/parent_slug/childOne_slug
Child two route: site.com/parent_slug/childOne_slug/childTwo_slug
creating this much if statement in blade to make sure we get the right route for the right categories to me doesn't seem right. I was thinking about model function which returns final route depend on category parenting level in database but I wasn't sure if it's possible or not? and if it is, how?
Question
Is it possible I pass category routes to the categories from model?
How to do that?
Code
Category model
protected $fillable = [
'title', 'slug', 'thumbnail', 'publish','mainpage', 'parent_id', 'color', 'template'
];
public function posts(){
return $this->belongsToMany(Post::class, 'post_categories');
}
public function parent() {
return $this->belongsTo(Category::class, 'parent_id');
}
public function children() {
return $this->hasMany(Category::class, 'parent_id');
}
this is how currently i'm getting my posts categories:
#foreach($post->categories as $category)
<a class="post-cat" href="#">{{$category->title}}</a>
#endforeach
Any idea?
UPDATE
Well I solved it :-D here is the code I've made
public function getCatSlug(){
if($this->parent_id != ''){ //child one
if($this->parent->parent_id != ''){ //child two
if($this->parent->parent->parent_id != ''){ //child three
return $this->parent->parent->parent->slug. '/'. $this->parent->parent->slug. '/'. $this->parent->slug. '/'. $this->slug;
}
return $this->parent->parent->slug. '/'. $this->parent->slug. '/'. $this->slug;
}
return $this->parent->slug. '/'. $this->slug;
}
return $this->slug;
}
This does exactly what I needed it return slugs by orders like parent/child1/child2
Issue
the issue here is now routing this dynamic path as the result of this function I can now have any deep level of path and this needs to be dynamic in routes as well.
Route
my current route is like:
Route::get('/category/{slug}', 'Front\CategoryController#parent')->name('categoryparent');
which returns this path:
site.com/category/parent
but it doesn't return:
site.com/category/parent/child_one
site.com/category/parent/child_one/child_two
Controller
public function parent($slug){
$category = Category::where('slug', $slug)->with('children')->first();
$category->addView();
$posts = $category->posts()->paginate(8);
return view('front.categories.single', compact('category','posts'));
}
any idea?
Update 2
based on Matei Mihai answer I've made custom classes in App/Helpers folder with details below:
CategoryRouteService.php
<?php
namespace App\Helpers;
use App\Category;
class CategoryRouteService
{
private $routes = [];
public function __construct()
{
$this->determineCategoriesRoutes();
}
public function getRoute(Category $category)
{
return $this->routes[$category->id];
}
private function determineCategoriesRoutes()
{
$categories = Category::all()->keyBy('id');
foreach ($categories as $id => $category) {
$slugs = $this->determineCategorySlugs($category, $categories);
if (count($slugs) === 1) {
$this->routes[$id] = url('p/' . $slugs[0]);
}
else {
$this->routes[$id] = url('/' . implode('/', $slugs));
}
}
}
private function determineCategorySlugs(Category $category, Collection $categories, array $slugs = [])
{
array_unshift($slugs, $category->slug);
if (!is_null($category->parent_id)) {
$slugs = $this->determineCategorySlugs($categories[$category->parent_id], $categories, $slugs);
}
return $slugs;
}
}
and CategoryServiceProvider.php
<?php
namespace App\Helpers;
use App\Helpers\CategoryRouteService;
class CategoryServiceProvider
{
public function register()
{
$this->app->singleton(CategoryRouteService::class, function ($app) {
// At this point the categories routes will be determined.
// It happens only one time even if you call the service multiple times through the container.
return new CategoryRouteService();
});
}
}
then I registered my provider to composer.json file like:
"autoload": {
"classmap": [
"database/seeds",
"database/factories"
],
"psr-4": {
"App\\": "app/"
},
"files": [
"app/helpers/CategoryServiceProvider.php" //added here
]
},
I also dumped autoloads and added this to my Category model
use App\Helpers\CategoryRouteService;
public function getRouteAttribute()
{
$categoryRouteService = app(CategoryRouteService::class);
return $categoryRouteService->getRoute($this);
}
then I used {{$category->route}} as my categries href attribute and I got this:
Argument 2 passed to App\Helpers\CategoryRouteService::determineCategorySlugs() must be an instance of App\Helpers\Collection, instance of Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection given
which is refers to:
private function determineCategorySlugs(Category $category, Collection $categories, array $slugs = [])
{
ideas?

Answer 1

It is possible, but you must take care of the script performance because it could end up having a lot of DB queries done to determine each category route.
My recommendation would be to create a CategoryRouteService class which will be registered as singleton to keep the database queries as low as possible. It could be something like:
class CategoryRouteService
{
private $routes = [];
public function __construct()
{
$this->determineCategoriesRoutes();
}
public function getRoute(Category $category)
{
return $this->routes[$category->id];
}
private function determineCategoriesRoutes()
{
$categories = Category::all()->keyBy('id');
foreach ($categories as $id => $category) {
$slugs = $this->determineCategorySlugs($category, $categories);
if (count($slugs) === 1) {
$this->routes[$id] = url('/p/' . $slugs[0]);
}
else {
$this->routes[$id] = url('/' . implode('/', $slugs));
}
}
}
private function determineCategorySlugs(Category $category, Collection $categories, array $slugs = [])
{
array_unshift($slugs, $category->slug);
if (!is_null($category->parent_id)) {
$slugs = $this->determineCategorySlugs($categories[$category->parent_id], $categories, $slugs);
}
return $slugs;
}
}
Now as I said before, you need a service provider to register this service. It should look like this:
class CategoryServiceProvider
{
public function register()
{
$this->app->singleton(CategoryRouteService::class, function ($app) {
// At this point the categories routes will be determined.
// It happens only one time even if you call the service multiple times through the container.
return new CategoryRouteService();
});
}
}
This service provider must be added in the app configuration file.
The Category model could have a method which defines the route attribute:
class Category extends Model
{
public function getRouteAttribute()
{
$categoryRouteService = app(CategoryRouteService::class);
return $categoryRouteService->getRoute($this);
}
/** Your relationships methods **/
}
Finally, you can use it in your blade views simply by using $category->route.
#foreach($post->categories as $category)
<a class="post-cat" href="{{$category->route}}">{{$category->title}}</a>
#endforeach
Please note that there could be other solutions better than this. I just came across this one without thinking too much. Also, the code above was not tested so please be aware that it might need some minor changes to make it work properly.