Laravel models and relations tickets with feedback and users - php

Question

I am trying to grasp the concept of Eloquent ORM by creating a ticketing system at the moment. What I am trying to achieve is:
The tickets with the user who posted the ticket
The feedback belonging to the ticket and the user who entered the
feedback
This is what I have right now:
// TicketController.php
public function index()
{
$tickets = Ticket::with('feedback')->with('user')->orderBy("created_at", "desc")->get();
//dd($tickets);
return View::make('modules.helpdesk.index')->withTickets($tickets);
}
And the following models
// Ticket.php
class Ticket extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'helpdesk_tickets';
public function feedback()
{
return $this->hasMany('Feedback');
}
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo('User');
}
}
// Feedback.php
class Feedback extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'helpdesk_tickets_feedback';
public function ticket()
{
return $this->belongsTo('Ticket');
}
}
// User.php
class User extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'users';
public function ticket()
{
return $this->belongsTo('Ticket');
}
}
What I have now is the tickets, their related feedback and user who created the ticket. What I am trying to achieve now is to also get the user who created the feedback.

Answer 1

You need to fix the relation:
// User model
public function tickets()
{
return $this->hasMany('Ticket'); // adjust namespace if needed
}
Next add the relation:
// Feedback model
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo('User'); // namespace like above
}
then use eager loading:
// it will execute 4 queries:
// 1st for tickets
// 2nd for feedback
// 3rd for feedbacks' user
// 4th for tickets' user
$tickets = Ticket::with('feedback.user', 'user')->latest()->get();
you can then access the relations in a loop, like below:
#foreach ($tickets as $ticket)
{{ $ticket->title }} by {{ $ticket->user->name }}
#foreach ($ticket->feedback as $feedback)
{{ $feedback->content }}
#endforeach
#endforeach

Answer 2

What you want to do is create nested relations, just like Ticket add a belgonsTo relation on feeback
When you want to use it you can chain relations using the dot notation feedback.user
The code
// Feedback.php
class Feedback extends Eloquent {
protected $table = 'helpdesk_tickets_feedback';
public function ticket()
{
return $this->belongsTo('Ticket');
}
public function user()
{
return $this->belgonsTo('User')
}
}
// TicketController.php
public function index()
{
$tickets = Ticket::with('feedback')->with('user')->with('feedback.user')->orderBy("created_at", "desc")->get();
//dd($tickets);
return View::make('modules.helpdesk.index')->withTickets($tickets);
}

Answer 3

EDIT:
Even though this would work, it will execute more queries than needed. See Jareks answer.
Original Answer:
First of all you need to get your relationships straightened, in User.php you should call the user relationship with HasMany.
public function ticket() {
return $this->hasMany('Ticket');
}
In modules.helpdesk.index you should now have a Ticket Collection since your attaching the $ticket variable to the view.
If you loop through this collection with a foreach loop then what you should get is a model each loop:
foreach($tickets as $ticket) {
// Prints the name property of the Ticket model
print $ticket->name;
// Since a ticket only belongs to ONE user then that means that you are trying to fetch a model
// What we're doing here is getting the User model via the relationship you made in the model Ticket.php and then getting the name.
print $ticket->user()->first()->username;
// Since a ticket can have MANY feedbacks that means were fetching a collection
// which needs to be broken down to models so we do that looping the collection.
// Here we are doing the same thing as with the User model except with a collection.
foreach($ticket->feedback()->get() as $feedback) {
$feedback->text;
}
}
You should definitely check out the Laravel API and see Collection and Model there. http://laravel.com/api/ You get alot of help from there when you get stuck, trust me :)
I hope this answered your question.