Strange relationship - One To Four ?

I have two tables and two models. User and Task. My user can have three normal tasks and one special task. Tables look like this:

tasks: | id | desc |

I want to create relation.. or scope.. or anything that let my do something like this.

$user->normalTasks();

And I get array which includes task_1, task_2 and task_3. It is also possible that the array will be empty because the user may not have any tasks at present or only have one or two.

I'm trying this:

public function task1() {
  return $this->belongsTo(Task::class, 'id');
}

public function task2() {
  return $this->belongsTo(Task::class, 'id');
}

public function task3() {
  return $this->belongsTo(Task::class, 'id');
}

public function normalTasks() {
    $a = $this->task1;
    $b = $this->task2;
    $c = $this->task3;

    return $a;
        ->merge($b)
        ->merge($c);
}

But I get only :

Call to undefined method App\Task::merge()

I thinking from few days, but I can't create any similar thing. Anybody helps ?

Romain

5 years ago

Level 30

Hey, interesting question.

If you can, I would suggest that you re-think your architecture a little. To me it would be simpler to have a table for users and a table for tasks (like you so far) but, the tasks would have a column "special" that is false by default.

In your migration for tasks table: $table->boolean('special', false);

and then for your relationships: In User:

public function tasks() {
  return $this->hasMany(Task::class);
}

public function normalTasks() {
  return $this->tasks->where('special', '=', false);
}

public function spacialTasks() {
  return $this->tasks->where('special', '=', true);
}

Now the trick is then to check how many normal/special task you have on a user when creating a new task. Then deciding wether to create a new one or not. To know how many tasks you have: $user->normalTasks->count() :D

Sorry if the where conditions are off, I did it on top of my head but I'm sure you get the idea

Tomasz_Kisiel

5 years ago

Level 1

Tasks are not divided into special and non-special ones. It depends on the user. The task may be special for the first user, but not for the second.

Romain

5 years ago

Level 30

but then the user decides if it's special. I imagine that you have a submission form, there the user can decide on wether a task is special or not. That is fine, and my suggested structure will still work. All you need is your database to know if a task is special

kundefine

5 years ago

Level 2

// you can try this. i don't know it will work or not
// if you get the task1, task2, task3 data then it will work
public function normalTasks() {
    $a = collect($this->task1); 
    $b = collect($this->task2);
    $c = collect($this->task3);

    return $a;
        ->merge($b)
        ->merge($c);
}

Tomasz_Kisiel

5 years ago

Level 1

Finally I decided to make normal many to many relationship and control task programaticly but thanks for all sugestion.

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