Passing a factory into another in Laravel 5 - php

Question

I am trying to generate a test on Laravel.
What I was trying is to create a fictitious position name, then add 10 people for this position.
PositionsFactory.php
$factory->define(App\Position::class, function (Faker $faker) {
return [
'p_id' => $faker->unique()->randomNumber($nbDigits = 8),
'name' => $faker->word,
'org' => $faker->word,
'user_id' => 1
];
});
Here is my EmployeeFactory.php
$factory->define(App\Employee::class, function (Faker $faker) {
return [
'FirstName' => $faker->name,
'LastName' => $faker->lastName,
'pid' => $position->p_id,
'org'=> $position->org,
'user_id' => 1,
];
});
Well here is one my my trials but it did not work
for ($i=0; $i < 5; $i++ ){
$position = factory('App\Position')->create();
factory('App\Employee',10)->create(
'pid' => $position->pid,
'org' => $position->org
);
}
I am trying to loop for 5 times and for each loop I want to create 10 employees with the same position Id. But obviously I am missing something.
I tried adding $position in the Employee factory, which works great.
$factory->define(App\Employee::class, function (Faker $faker) {
$position = factory('App\Position')->create();
return [
'FirstName' => $faker->name,
'LastName' => $faker->lastName,
'pid' => $position->p_id,
'org'=> $position->org,
'user_id' => 1,
];
});
Is there a way to make something like,
$factory('App\Position',5)->create($factory('App\Employee',10));
Maybe I am missing something with call back but kinda lost. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

I think you might be looking for the each method which can be called after create:
// Generate 5 positions and execute a callback
// function for each position created
factory(App\Position::class, 5)->create()->each(function ($position) {
// In the callback, generate 10 employees
// and manually override the foreign key
factory(App\Employee::class, 10)->create([
'pid' => $position->id
]);
});
Further information on each and handling relationships: https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/database-testing#relationships.
Hope it helps!

Answer 2

You can create them separatly and loop through collections.
$positions = factory('App\Position', 3)->make();
foreach ($positions as $position){
$employes = factory('App\Employee', 3)->make();
foreach ($employes as $employee){
$employee->p_id = $position->id;
//etc.. watever you want to connect
}
}
now you have 1 collection of positions and 1 collection of employes devided of the positions
note that the make method does not save to database you need to manually save them
you could also change your factory as is stated in the documentation https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/database-testing#using-factories
yours would look like:
$factory->define(App\Employee::class, function (Faker $faker) {
return [
'FirstName' => $faker->name,
'LastName' => $faker->lastName,
'org'=> $position->org,
'user_id' => 1,
'pid' => function () {
return factory('App\Position')->create()->id;
}
];
});
This will create a position for each user the factory creates.
You could also use existing eloquent models instead if you have existing positions.