Laravel belongsTo throwing undefined function App/BelongsTo() exception - php

Question

I have a comments table and user table with the relationship: user->hasMany('comments') and comment->belongsTo('user'). For some reason with which eludes me, I keep getting this
FatalErrorException in Comment.php line 22: Call to undefined function App\belongsTo()
My other models have no issue whatsoever with the HasMany relations, however, the comments model has a problem with every single thing i try (even if i use HasMany just to see if it will have a different error).
Here is the Comment model.
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Comment extends Model {
protected $table = 'comments';
protected $fillable = [
'anime_id',
'user_id',
'user_comment'
];
public function postedOnAnime($query)
{
$query->where('anime_id', '=', $this.id);
}
public function user()
{
return $this.belongsTo('App\User', 'user_id', 'id');
}
public function anime()
{
return $this.belongsTo('App\Anime');
}
}
Here is the Users table:
<?php
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
class CreateUsersTable extends Migration {
/**
* Run the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function up()
{
Schema::create('users', function(Blueprint $table)
{
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('role');
$table->string('name')->unique();
$table->string('email')->unique();
$table->string('password', 60);
$table->rememberToken();
$table->timestamps();
});
}
/**
* Reverse the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function down()
{
Schema::drop('users');
}
}
Here is the Comments table
<?php
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
class CreateCommentsTable extends Migration {
/**
* Run the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function up()
{
Schema::create('comments', function(Blueprint $table)
{
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();
$table->integer('anime_id')->unsigned();
$table->text('user_comment');
$table->timestamps();
$table->foreign('user_id')
->references('id')
->on('users')
->onDelete('cascade');
$table->foreign('anime_id')
->references('id')
->on('animes')
->onDelete('cascade');
});
}
/**
* Reverse the migrations.
*
* #return void
*/
public function down()
{
Schema::drop('comments');
}
}
Finally, when I call $comment->user() it fails with the error. Does anyone know where this error comes from?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Well, this error occurred because I had '.' in place of '->'. I couldn't figure out why it was always throwing the exact same error regardless if I did $this.belongsTo('App\User'); or $this.hasMany('App\User'); or even $this.thecakeisalie('App\User'); until I sat staring at the text between my many models yet again. Then, lo and behold, its another dumb, tiny and really hard to locate mistake of mine(as it usually is).

Answer 2

return $this.belongsTo('App\User', 'user_id', 'id');
to
return $this->belongsTo('App\User');

Answer 3

I think this is a common mistake coming from other languages where . is used to access properties. In PHP, it should be ->.
$this.belongsTo('...')
should be rewritten as
$this->belongsTo('...')