getting data from a pivot table in laravel - php

Question

I have 3 tables :post , tag , tag_post.
I save post_id in post / tag_id in tag / and both of them in tag_post.
how can I show every post's tags ? how can I select data from tag_post table?
it's my Post model :
public function tag()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Tag','tag_post');
}
and it's my Tag model :
public function post()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Post','tag_post');
}
and it's my controller :
$posts=Post::orderBy('id','DESC')->paginate(5);
///but I dont know how can i show each post's tags under it
thanks for your time.

Answer 1

A few things here (I will keep it simple so no orderBy or anything else, also I assume you rename relations to plural: tags() and posts() to make it easier to read and work with):
$posts = Post::paginate(5); // returns a Collection of Post models, 1 db query
foreach ($posts as $post) {
$post->tags; // Collection of Tag models, fetched from db for each $post
}
This means 5+1 queries. It doesn't scale at all of course, so we need http://laravel.com/docs/eloquent#eager-loading
Which leads us to:
$posts = Post::with('tags')->paginate(5); // returns a Collection of Post models
// runs 1 query for posts and 1 query for all the tags
foreach ($posts as $post) {
$post->tags; // Collection of Tag models, no more db queries
}
So to list all the tags you could do this:
#foreach ($posts as $post)
<tr>
<td>{{ $post->title }}</td>
<td>
#foreach ($post->tags as $tag)
{{ $tag->name }} // or whatever it is that you want to print of the tag
#endforeach
</td>
</tr>
#endforeach

Answer 2

If you need to get the tags from each post you need a foreach loop.
foreach ($posts as $post)
{
var_dump($post->tags); // your individual post's tags will be here
}
Also, as much as I don't like to poke my nose around, it would be better if you follow the conventions in the framework itself. (i.e. use plurals form in many-to-many relationship)
Post Model
public function tags() // <-- note the plurals
{
$this->belongsToMany('Tag', 'tag_post');
}
Tag Model
public function posts() // <-- note the plurals
{
$this->belongsToMany('Post', 'tag_post');
}
If you need to get data from the tag_post table, check out the documentation on working with pivot table.
http://laravel.com/docs/eloquent#working-with-pivot-tables