Laravel fetch only pivot columns in many to many relationship - php

Question

I have a User model that relates to a Section model through a pivot model UserTrainingSection. I have a pivot table that stores the foreign keys for both tables called section_user.
I have 2 additional pivot table columns called completed and completed_date.
The problem I am having is that when I fetch my data it returns all the columns from the User model along with the additional pivot columns.
class Section extends Model
{
public $table = "sections";
public $fillable = [
'id',
'name',
'description',
'parent',
'position',
'completion_percentage'
];
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(User::class, 'section_user')->using('App\Models\UserTrainingSection')->withPivot('completed', 'completed_date');
}
}
In my API service I fetch my data like this:
Section::with(['users' => function ($q) {
$q->where('users.id', Auth::user()->id);
}])->first();
How do I only return the pivot table columns and exclude the columns from the user table?
At the moment it returns something like this:
"sections": [
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Subsection 1 training",
"description": null,
"parent": 1,
"position": 2,
"completion_percentage": null,
"created_at": "2018-05-04 09:54:09",
"updated_at": "2018-05-11 09:14:59",
"users": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Test",
"email": "test#test.com",
"created_at": "12-04-2018 14:51:42",
"updated_at": "2018-04-19 14:14:36",
"pivot": {
"section_id": 2,
"user_id": 1,
"completed": 1,
"completed_date": "31/05/2018",
"expires": "31/05/2019"
},
}
]
}
]
What I would like to return is something like this:
"sections": [
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Subsection 1 training",
"description": null,
"parent": 1,
"position": 2,
"completion_percentage": null,
"created_at": "2018-05-04 09:54:09",
"updated_at": "2018-05-11 09:14:59",
"users": [
{
"pivot": {
"section_id": 2,
"user_id": 1,
"completed": 1,
"completed_date": "31/05/2018",
"expires": "31/05/2019"
}
}
]
}
]
So I basically get rid of the user data I don't want and only return the pivot data.

Answer 1

As per your expected output i guess you need data from junction model only, If that is the case i suggest you to define direct mapping of Section and UserTrainingSection
class Section extends Model
{
public function training_users()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Models\UserTrainingSection', 'section_id');
}
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(User::class, 'section_user')->using('App\Models\UserTrainingSection')->withPivot('completed', 'completed_date');
}
}
In query you can simply do
Section::with('training_users')->first();

Answer 2

In your with statement you are fetching all User data by definition.
You can add a select statement to only get the results you want. You can add that either in the relationship in your model, or where you access the model in your API.
Example 1:
Section::with(['users' => function ($q) {
$q->where('users.id', Auth::user()->id)->select('completed', 'completed_date');
}])->first();
Example 2:
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(User::class, 'section_user')->using('App\Models\UserTrainingSection')->withPivot('completed', 'completed_date')->select('completed', 'completed_date');
}
(Not tested)
See the documentation