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I have multiple tables that will be tagged so someone here pointed me in the direction of Polymorphic Many to Many relationships. I read the documentation and watched Jeffreys video. My tags and tags and taggables table are set up the same as his in the video.
tags( id, name) taggables(tag_id, taggable_id, taggable_type)
I created the models as shown in his video:
// app\Product.php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Product extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'code_id',
'title',
'slug',
'body',
'display',
'new',
'published_at',
'image_id',
'excerpt'
];
public function categories() {
return $this->belongsToMany('App\Category');
}
public function status()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\Status', 'display', 'id');
}
public function image()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\ImageModel');
}
public function codes()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Code');
}
public function tags()
{
return $this->morphToMany('App\Tag', 'taggable');
}
}
// app\Tag.php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Tag extends Model
{
public function articles()
{
return $this->morphedByMany('App\Article', 'taggable');
}
public function anglers()
{
return $this->morphedByMany('App\Angler', 'taggable');
}
public function products()
{
return $this->morphedByMany('App\Product', 'taggable');
}
public function videos()
{
return $this->morphedByMany('App\Video', 'taggable');
}
}
I have a textarea called tags in a view, My form submits and astores all the other relevant information. when it comes to my tags it inserts records into taggables table with a blank tag id and nothing is recorded in the tags table.
my Method:
public function update(Request $request, $slug)
{
$product = Product::where('slug', $slug)->firstOrFail();
$request->merge([
'slug' => str_slug($request->get('title'))
]);
$product->fill($request->input())->save();
//sync categories array
$product->categories()->sync($request->get('categories'));
// use helper function tags_to_array to turn string into array and remove whitespace
$product->tags()->sync(tags_to_array($request->get('tags')));
return redirect(route('dashboard.products'));
}
my tags_to_array helper function:
function tags_to_array($string)
{
$array = explode(',', $string);
$result= array();
foreach($array as $tag){
$result[] = trim($tag);
}
return $result;
}
if I enter 3 keywords seperated by commas I recieve 3 records in taggables with blank tag ids and 0 records in tags.
Am I missing something?
NOTE: for anyone reading this thread, I accepted @bobbybouwmann first reply as the correct answer as that is technically what had to happen, how ever I had to change a few other things to get everything working as should so read rest of thread.
You need to create Tag models first before you can do that
function tags_to_array($string)
{
$tags = explode(',', $string);
// Create an empty collection
$result = collect();
foreach($tags as $tag){
// Create a new tag if it doesn't exist and push it to the collection
$result->push(Tag::firstOrCreate(['name' => $tag));
}
return $result;
}
The $result will now contain all the tags you need
Ok so I added use App\Tag to my helper, I now get an error however the tags are stored
ErrorException in BelongsToMany.php line 806: Argument 1 passed to Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsToMany::formatSyncList() must be of the type array, object given, called in /volume1/web/laravel/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Relations/BelongsToMany.php on line 771 and defined
if I turn it into an array I get another error:
SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'id' in 'field list' (SQL: insert into `taggables` (`created_at`, `id`, `name`, `tag_id`, `taggable_id`, `taggable_type`, `updated_at`) values (2015-12-02 12:16:15, 1, test, 0, 234, App\Product, 2015-12-02 12:16:15))
the id column is called taggable_id but it also appears the insert values have the name and id the wrong way around and the id is 0 for some reason?
@bobbybouwmann Using PHP Tinker the following seems to work
>>> $product = Product::find(5)
>>> $product->tags()->firstOrCreate(['name' => 'great']);
=> App\Tag {#777
name: "great",
updated_at: "2015-12-02 12:46:03",
created_at: "2015-12-02 12:46:03",
id: 1,
}
however if I add the same 'great' tag to another product
>>> $product = Product::find(9)
>>> $product->tags()->firstOrCreate(['name' => 'great']);
=> App\Tag {#780
name: "great",
updated_at: "2015-12-02 12:47:05",
created_at: "2015-12-02 12:47:05",
id: 2,
}
My tags table now has great in there twice?
is firstOrCreate not suppose to prevent duplicates?
Try this in tinker
$tag = Tag::firstOrCreate(['name' => 'great']);
$product = Product::find(9);
$product->tags()->attach($tag);
$product = Product::find(5);
$product->tags()->attach($tag);
Calling firstOrCreateon the relation method will make new instances of the model
@bobbybouwmann Hallo, I know this post is a little old, I'm trying to use firstOrCreate on a polimorphic relation, but it is creating new models with the same number:
foreach($phones as $phone){
$user->phones()->firstOrCreate(['number' => $phone->number ]);
}
Do you know why it is happening? Thanks in advance. Hernán.
@hmreumann I would expect that this works out of the box. I can't find anything in the code why this wouldn't work. The only thing I can think of is that the polymorphic fields are missing here (phoneable_id and phoneable_type)
@bobbybouwmann Ok, I'm sorry because I didn't explain the issue I was having. I wanted firstOrCreate to work as expected, I mean not creating a new phone with the same number (this was the problem). After some research I noticed that I had a mutator in the model. So, the number was changed prior being stored in the DB, so the method searched for a number that didn't exist, and created a new one. What I did was changing the mutator to an accesor and the issue was solved. Thanks.
Ok I see now, that works and has the desired result, now I have it working in tinker, time to translate this into my project and get it working there.
Im getting a lot closer, tags and taggable are being populated by the tags I enter however for each tag an additional record is created in taggables with tag_id as 0. I assume this is something to do with converting the collection into an array?
public function update(Request $request, $slug)
{
$product = Product::where('slug', $slug)->firstOrFail();
$request->merge([
'slug' => str_slug($request->get('title'))
]);
$product->fill($request->input())->save();
//sync categories array
$product->categories()->sync($request->get('categories'));
// use helper function tags_to_array to turn string into array and remove whitespace
$tags = tags_to_array($request->get('tags'));
foreach($tags as $tag){
$product->tags()->attach($tag);
}
return redirect(route('dashboard.products'));
}
function tags_to_array($string)
{
$tags = explode(',', $string);
// Create an empty collection
$result = collect();
foreach($tags as $tag){
// Create a new tag if it doesn't exist and push it to the collection
$result->push(Tag::firstOrCreate(['name' => trim($tag)]));
}
return $result->toArray();
}
It was something to do with the collection being cast to an array. The following helper function has fixed my issue and everything works as should. thank you for your help @bobbybouwmann
function tags_to_array($string)
{
$tags = explode(',', $string);
// Create an empty array
$result = array();
foreach($tags as $tag){
// Create a new tag if it doesn't exist and push it to the collection
$result[] = Tag::firstOrCreate(['name' => trim($tag)]);
}
return $result;
}
Glad you fixed it! Sorry for not responding ;)
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