Get specified record from belongsToMany relation Laravel - php

Question

If I have properties table, and 2 other tables:
*property_characteristics
- property_id (i.e. 1)
- characteristic_id (i.e. 5 - join with default_characteristics)
- value (i.e. 3 - aka 3 rooms)
*default_characteristics
- id (i.e. 5)
- name (i.e. rooms)
In the Property.php model I have:
public function characteristics()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Proactiv\DefaultCharacteristic', 'property_characteristics', 'property_id', 'characteristic_id');
}
How can I get the number of rooms (value from property_characteristics) for a property starting from:
$property = Properties::find(1);
I would need something like this in view:
$property->characteristics->rooms // should return 3 which is the value columns on property_characteristics table

Answer 1

Since the value is on your pivot table, you need to tell Laravel about this extra field. Add to your belongsToMany line to make:
return $this->belongsToMany('Proactiv\DefaultCharacteristic', 'property_characteristics', 'property_id', 'characteristic_id')
->withPivot('value');
Then select characteristics with the name you want, rooms, and get the value:
echo $property->characteristics()->with('name', 'rooms')->first()->pivot->value;
Alternatively, add a getter to your Property model which does this for you (you'll still need to add that withPivot part to the relationship):
public function getRoomsAttribute()
{
return $this->characteristics()
->where('name', 'rooms')
->first()
->pivot
->value;
}
Then you can get the number of rooms in a similar way to how you originally wanted to, with $property->rooms.
Or you could generalize this to get any characteristic:
public function getCharacteristic($name)
{
return $this->characteristics()
->where('name', $name)
->first()
->pivot
->value;
}
And then get the number of rooms with $property->getCharacteristic('rooms').

Answer 2

First, you have to tell your relationship to make your additional field available. You do this using the withPivot() method:
public function characteristics() {
return $this->belongsToMany('Proactiv\DefaultCharacteristic', 'property_characteristics', 'property_id', 'characteristic_id')
->withPivot('value');
}
Now you can access your value on the pivot table. You do this like so:
$property = Properties::find(1);
foreach ($property->characteristics as $characteristic) {
echo $characteristic->pivot->value;
}
You can read more about this in the documentation here, under the Retrieving Intermediate Table Columns heading.