Laravel 5 database relationship accessing a data on another table - php

Question

I have this kind of database design
user_classes
- id
- user_id
- class_schedule_id
class_schedules
- id
- class_id
- date
classes
- id
- name
I am now in my UserClass.php Model File
public function classSchedule() {
return $this->belongsTo('\App\ClassSchedule');
}
public static function getClassByUser($user_id){
$user_class = self::where('user_id','=',$user_id)->with('classSchedule');
//other codes here...
}
My question here is that how can I access the name of the class in the class table since the user_classes table doesn't have a direct access to the class instead it should go through first to the class_schedules table.
I am not sure what Eloquent ORM Relationship should I use.
Your help will be greatly appreciated!
thanks! :)

Answer 1

First of all you will need to rename the third class, from class to something else. Then try this,
class user_classes Extends Eloquent {
function classSchedule() {
return $this->hasMany('Class_schedules','class_schedule_id');
}
}
class class_schedules Extends Eloquent {
function userClasses() {
return $this->belongsTo('user_classes', 'class_schedule_id');
}
function classSomething() {
return $this->hasOne('class_something','id');
}
}
class class_something Extends Eloquent {
function classSchedules() {
return $this->belongsTo('class_schedules', 'id');
}
}

Answer 2

Try and follow the naming conventions within Laravel, that will make your life easier down the road.
It uses the snake_cased version of the plural of your model name to define the table name automagically.
Besides that, when you have a relation with single or plural output, name your relation methods accordingly to describe what they do and what kind of output you can expect.
I prefer a dir /app/Models for the models, hence the namespace, you can change this to /app if that's where your models are.
<?php namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class UserClass extends Model
{
// only defined because laravel auto generates alphabetically
protected $table = 'user_classes';
public function user()
{
// given that User model was moved to app/Models, if not, use \App\User
return $this->belongsTo('\App\Models\User');
}
public function classSchedule()
{
return $this->belongsTo('\App\Models\ClassSchedule');
}
}
<?php namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class ClassSchedule extends Model
{
public function class()
{
return $this->belongsTo('\App\Models\Class');
}
}
<?php namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Class extends Model
{
public function classSchedules()
{
return $this->hasMany('\App\Models\ClassSchedule');
}
}
Now you can basically fetch all entries of UserClass for a particular user, with or without eager loading...
$userClasses = UserClass::where('user_id', $userId)->get();
$userClasses->map(function($userClass) {
echo $userClass->classSchedule->class;
});
More preferably you'll have a method userClasses() with a hasMany relation in your user model