Laravel Models Pivot Table 1-1 Relationship should be 1-M - php

Question

I have a problem here with my Laravel model, i'm trying to use a Pivot Table that I already have in my database, here's the layout of the tables I am using
clients
jobs
clients-jobs
I believe the Error is in my model, I don't completely understand the eloquent syntax, I have been trying several other methods though. I would like to keep the primary on the clients-jobs table in order to index it easier.
Here's my models:
Client
protected $table = 'clients';
public $timestamps = true;
protected $primaryKey = "id";
public function clientsjobs() {
return $this->belongsTo('ClientsJobs');
}
Job
protected $table = 'jobs';
protected $fillable = array('first_name', 'last_name', 'email');
protected $primaryKey = "id";
public function clientsjobs() {
return $this->belongsToMany('ClientsJobs');
}
ClientsJobs ( Maybe I should delete this model? Am I using it right? )
protected $table = 'clients-jobs';
protected $primaryKey = "id";
public function clients() {
return $this->hasOne('Client', 'id');
}
public function jobs() {
return $this->hasOne('Job', 'id');
}
The Code I am using to try and display all of the records for the clients-jobs table is this here in one of my controllers (thanks sebastien):
$masterArray = array();
ClientsJobs::with('clients', 'jobs')->chunk(200, function($records) use (&$masterArray) { //Chunk Retrieves 200 Records at a time
foreach ($records as $record) {
$masterArray[] = array(
'id' => $record->id, // id
'client_name' => !empty($record->clients) ? $record->clients->fname : "Unknown",
'job_name' => !empty($record->jobs) ? $record->jobs->name : "Unknown",
'wage' => $record->wage,
'productivity'=> $record->productivity,
);
}
});
return $masterArray;
this code works for the first two records, but "unknown" after that, I'm pretty sure that it's because the application thinks it's a 1:1 relationship ( I only have 2 Users and 2 Jobs as dummy data ).
Thanks in Advance for any suggestions that you can make, also if you see something nasty that I did please let me know

Answer 1

You should delete the ClientsJobs model, it's unnecessary. Laravel's belongsToMany relationship, when set up correctly will deal with the pivot table itself. Take a look at:
http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/eloquent
Many-to-many relations are a more complicated relationship type. An
example of such a relationship is a user with many roles, where the
roles are also shared by other users. For example, many users may have
the role of "Admin". Three database tables are needed for this
relationship: users, roles, and role_user. The role_user table is
derived from the alphabetical order of the related model names, and
should have user_id and role_id columns.
Your pivot table should either be named with Laravel's convention of taking the model name of each (Singular) and joining them together with an underscore character (client_job) or you can specify the name of the pivot table etc. on your relationship. Laravel's documentation gives the following example which allows you to override the default pivot table name and corresponding keys:
return $this->belongsToMany('Role', 'user_roles', 'user_id', 'foo_id');
In your case, if you're after a one to one relationship, you don't really need a pivot table. You can just implement hasMany and belongsTo relationships. That is, a client belongs to a job, but a job can have many clients.