Laravel Eloquent followers relationship

I would probably go this way:

Followers are Users, right? Maybe don't need an own model for those. (Or you can extend one from the User if needed)

No need to add columns to users table, just set up a followings pivot table, having user_id and follower_id.

In User model

public function follows() {

    return User::whereIn('id', \DB::table('followings')->select('user_id')->where('follower_id', $this->id));
}

public function followers() {

    return User::whereIn('id', \DB::table('followings')->select('follower_id')->where('user_id', $this->id));
}

Not tested (may contain typos)... And hopefully I understood your requirements correctly....

Since each User is basically a Follower (can follow another user) and a User can have multiple followers while at the same a Follwer can follow multiple users, I have a working solution for you that I have tested;

users
    id
    name
    username

followers
    id
    user_id

follower_user
    follower_id
    user_id

The follower_user pivot table migration:

Schema::create('follower_user', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->bigInteger('follower_id')->unsigned(); // Assuming you have bigIncrements on followers table
    $table->bigInteger('user_id')->unsigned(); // Assuming you have bigIncrements on users table

    $table->foreign('follower_id')
        ->references('id')
                ->on('followers')
                ->onDelete('cascade');

    $table->foreign('user_id')
                ->references('id')
                ->on('users')
                ->onDelete('cascade');

$table->primary(['follower_id', 'user_id']);
});

Here is how your eloquent relationships will look like;

User model class:

public function follower()
{
    return $this->hasOne(Follower::class, 'user_id', 'id');
}

public function followers()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Follower::class);
}

Follower model class:

public function user()
{
    return $belongsTo(User::class, 'user_id', 'id');
}

public function users()
{
    return $belongsToMany(User::class);
}

To retrieve followers of a perticular user:

$user->followers;

To retrieve users being followed by a particular follower (user):

$follower->users;

To retrieve the user details (name, username) of a particular follower;

$follower->user;

@TOKOIWESLEY - Hello!

Thank you very much for this awesome response. So one question though. A user can have many followers and follow many people. Wouldn't the follower method on the User model restrict that with the hasOne attribute??

@SNAPEY - Hi! Thank you for the reply. As I am a lot less experienced than you, I have a follow-up question to this that may seem obvious to you so I apologize in advance. How do I write the logic in my controller to update/insert rows in the pivot table? Currently, I am using

$follow = new Follower;

and then defining the values I want to input. How do I go about this since there is no model to use for the follows_users pivot table? Thank you!

(can't believe how convoluted the other replies are!)

@SNAPEY - Just to clarify, are you only using the follower_user table in this case and disregarding the original followers table? I currently have some foreign key assignment that are preventing me from using tinker to test this. I get SQL errors thrown at me.

Yes, just the pivot table follower_user no need for a followers table

@CALLUMCARLSTROM - No it won't restrict. The follower method gives you the follower record that belongs to a given user while the followers method gives you the users following the given user.

@CALLUMCARLSTROM - I've tested the latest solution by @snapey. It works and is the simplest.

@SNAPEY - Thank you for your support. So, just to clarify. The pivot table follower_user needs a foreign key pointing to users table in order to fetch information about each follower? And with this solution, it is possible to fetch followers information from the users table? Thanks again!

@SNAPEY - I apologize but I do have one more question. Is it not enough to use only one of the two function you provided:

 >>> User::find(1)->followers()->attach(User::find(15))  

or

 >>> User::find(1)->followings()->attach(User::find(7))

Because if I have a foreign key on both user_id and follower_id, both the id's attached in the follower_user table will point to the correct user correct? If I am missing something here, please tell me. As I previously stated, I am still new to this. Thank you sir!

Perhaps this will help. Assume this is the content of the follower_user table

user_id   follower_id
   1         12
   1         17
   1          8
  13          1
  17          1

user 1 is followed by users 12, 17 and 8

user 1 follows 13 and 17

Which column the ID appears in determines if you are following or are followed.

17 follows 1 and 1 follows 17. In this case you might be able to just have one row since they are mutual followers, but for all other cases the relationship is one way. The values in the columns determine the direction of the follow so you need the pivot to store the links and the separately named relationships to know which way around to interpret the columns. This is why they are switched over in the relationship methods.

@SNAPEY - This helped a whole lot! Thank you for clearing that up for me!

Since this is a pivot table and does not have an associated Eloquent model, how would I go about accessing, say the names of each follower from the users table? Something like $follower->user->name. Would I have to bring it in the controller with DB::table('follower_user') and add the appropriate arguments to that?

For the current logged in user (for instance)

Auth::user()->load('followers');

now user has a followers collection, each of which is a user model.

<ul>
  @foreach(Auth::user()->followers as $follower)
    <li>{{ $follower->name }}</li>
  @endforeach
</ul>

load()is the same as with() but for cases where you already have the model

@SNAPEY - Understood! And as for the two attach() on the methods followers and followings, how would you go about writing that in the controller? Putting them both in the same method followUser throws an error since it is trying to insert duplicate rows with the same primary key, id, in follower_user. I tried solving this by only including followers->attach() and then redirecting to another method in the controller with the followings->attach(). The problem I run into is that I am dependent on a variable, $id, from the URL to make the follow work. When I redirect, that variable does not get passed through to the new method. Is there a way around that or is there a way to make it all happen in one method?

no, that does not sound right at all. what you do in the controller is up to you, you should not need to call a different controller

show your code

show your migration, you should not have a primary key on the follower_user table

@SNAPEY - You're right. It's been updated. The primary keys were a mistake from an old migration. When I do

 $following = Auth::user()->load('followings');

and

@foreach($following as $follow)
                 <h2>Hey I'm a follower!</h2>
 @endforeach

I get three h2's even though there are only two rows in the database.

instead

$following = Auth::user()->followings()->get(); 

since you dont want followings as a child of user

Helpful!

@snapey Thanks for this it help me today :)