Laravel many-to-many custom pivot table name

A few minutes ago, I encountered an error in my many-to-many relationship that uses a custom pivot model.

In my User model, I have a purchases method for the many-to-many relationship.

public function packages(): BelongsToMany
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Package::class)
        ->as('purchases')
        ->withTimestamps()
        ->withPivot(['amount'])
        ->using(Purchase::class);
}

I'm getting an error, the returned SQL query is package_user and I'm really confused by it. Because I thought Laravel will use the plural form from the custom pivot model I have "Purchase". So I have a purchases table.

It turns out, I need to explicitly pass the table name (purchases), to the second argument of belongsToMany.

public function packages(): BelongsToMany
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Package::class, 'puchases')

I think it's essential for the documentation to cover such scenarios to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the framework.

LaryAI

2 years ago

Level 58

The solution to the issue mentioned in the question is to explicitly pass the table name to the second argument of the belongsToMany method. In this case, the table name is "purchases".

Here's the updated code:

public function packages(): BelongsToMany
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Package::class, 'purchases')
        ->as('purchases')
        ->withTimestamps()
        ->withPivot(['amount'])
        ->using(Purchase::class);
}

By passing the table name as the second argument, Laravel will use the correct table name in the SQL query.

1 like

Please or to participate in this conversation.