Laravel Eloquent Relationship Chain - php

Question

I'm building a simple notification system.
I'm able to get the logged in users notifications via Auth::user()->notifications but my end goal is to also grab the users info the notification is from.
I'm hoping for an end result of
foreach( Auth::user()->notifications AS $n)
{
echo $n->from->username;
}
currently this throws a "Trying to get property of non-object" error.
Notification table;
id
user_id - notification for this user
from_user_id - notification from this user
User.php;
public function notifications()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Notification', 'user_id', 'id')->orderBy('notifications.id','desc');
}
public function notificationsUnread()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Notification', 'user_id', 'id')->where('notifications.seen',null)->orderBy('notifications.id','desc');
}
Notification.php;
public function to()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User', 'user_id');
}
public function from()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User', 'from_user_id');
}

Answer 1

First you need to have a foreign key set in the table notifications; Then a user can have a notif. and many at the same time. A notif. belongs to a user and many notif. can belong to a user. So on the Notification model you set up the relationship belongsTo like so;
Foreign key:
$table->foreign('from')->refrences('id')->on('users')->onDelete('cascade');
then the relationship:
public function users()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
}
Then from the controller you can get users info like so;
$userName= Notification::users()->name;
In your case, you're pointing it wrong inreturn you will get only the relationship type instead of data object, since you are calling from like a non method. You should do something like this:
foreach( Auth::user()->notifications AS $n)
{
echo $n->from()->username;
}