How to update hasMany relationship in Laravel 5.1 - php

Question

I am totally new on Laravel, and I have implement the User table provided by Laravel Auth, and also I have create a table for the user meta data that is a Key Value pare table.
The user meta table is created by the following code :
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
class UserMeta extends Migration
{
/**
* Run the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function up()
{
Schema::create('user_meta', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();
$table->char('meta_key', 255);
$table->longText('meta_value')->nullable();
$table->timestamps();
$table->foreign('user_id')->references('id')->on('users')->onUpdate('cascade')->onDelete('cascade');
});
}
/**
* Reverse the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function down()
{
Schema::drop('user_meta');
}
}
In my User model I have the following method:
public function meta() {
return $this->hasMany('App\Models\UserMeta');
}
and inside my UserMeta model I have the following method:
public function user() {
return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
}
Until now anything is fine. So, when I register a new user I perform the following actions:
$user = User::create(
[
'name' => $data['name'],
'email' => $data['email'],
'password' => bcrypt( $data['password'] ),
]
);
if ( $user ) {
$telephone_number = new UserMeta;
$telephone_number->user()->associate($user);
$telephone_number->meta_key = 'telephone_number';
$telephone_number->meta_value = $data['telephone_number'];
$telephone_number->save();
$company = new UserMeta;
$company->user()->associate($user);
$company->meta_key = 'company';
$company->meta_value = $data['company'];
$company->save();
$web_site = new UserMeta;
$web_site->user()->associate($user);
$web_site->meta_key = 'web_site';
$web_site->meta_value = $data['web_site'];
$web_site->save();
}
return $user;
I suppose that should be a better way to perform that same actions, but I don't know what is the other way :( :)
So, the above code works very nice for me, but now the problem is with the value update. In this case, how can I update the Meta Data when I update the user profile ?
In my update method of my UserControler, I perform the following actions:
$user = User::where( 'id', '=', $id )->first();
$user->name = $request->input( 'name' );
$user->email = $request->input( 'email' );
$user->password = bcrypt( $request->input( 'password' ) );
$user->save();
My $request->input(); has the following extra fields that corresponding to meta values telephone_number, web_site, company.
So, how can I update the meta values in the user_meta table ?

Answer 1

Looping through values
Firstly, you are right that you could loop through the three keys in your create method to:
// Loop through all the meta keys we're looking for
foreach(['telephone_number', 'web_site', 'company'] as $metaKey) {
$meta = new UserMeta;
$meta->meta_key = $metaKey;
$meta->meta_value = array_get($data, $metaKey);
$meta->save();
}
The Update Method: Approach One
Then, in your update method
// Loop through all the meta keys we're looking for
foreach(['telephone_number', 'web_site', 'company'] as $metaKey) {
// Query for the meta model for the user and key
$meta = $user->meta()->where('meta_key', $metaKey)->firstOrFail();
$meta->meta_value = array_get($data, $metaKey);
$meta->save();
}
Note the firstOrFail() to end the query. This is just me being strict. If you wanted to add a meta value if it didn't exist, then you could replace that line with
// Query for the meta model for the user and key, or
// create a new one with that key
$meta = $user->meta()->where('meta_key', $metaKey)
->first() ?: new UserMeta(['meta_key' => $metaKey]);
The Update Method: Approach Two
This approach is a little more efficient, but a more complex (but also potentially teaches about a cool feature of Eloquent!).
You could load in all of the meta keys first (see lazy eager loading).
// load the meta relationship
$user->load('meta');
// Loop through all the meta keys we're looking for
foreach(['telephone_number', 'web_site', 'company'] as $metaKey) {
// Get the first item with a matching key from the loaded relationship
// Or, create a new meta for this key
$meta = $user->meta
->first(function($item) use ($metaKey) {
return $item->meta_key === $metaKey;
}) ?: new UserMeta(['meta_key' => $metaKey]);
$meta->meta_value = array_get($data, $metaKey);
$meta->save();
}