Be part of JetBrains PHPverse 2026 on June 9 – a free online event bringing PHP devs worldwide together.
I'm trying to set the sort_order field in the task factory. The task sort_order should start from 1 within each project.
| projects |
|---|
| id |
| project_name |
| tasks |
|---|
| id |
| project_id |
| task_name |
| sort_order |
I don't know how to access the project_id if it's passed in from the project seeder.
public function definition(): array
{
return [
'project_id' => Project::inRandomOrder()->first()->id,
'task_name' => $this->faker->sentence(6),
'sort_order' => Task::where('project_id', $project_id)->max('sort_order') + 1,
];
}
Project::factory()->count(20)->hasTasks(rand(5, 30))->create();
To access the project_id column, you can assign a closure as the sort_order which will receive an array of the factory's attributes:
'sort_order' => function (array $attributes) {
return Task::where('project_id', $attributes['project_id'])->max('sort_order') + 1;
},
Also, as a tip, you can define the relationship to the parent Project model in your factory like so:
'project_id' => Project::factory(),
Just a little shorter :)
@jj15 Thank you for the suggestion, I've attempted to use the closure approach as you suggested but this is setting the sort order value to 1 for all records?
@ella-stinnes Hello, avoid doing any sql query in the definition(), if you create 20 tasks, it will loop 20 times
public function definition(): array
{
info('This is definition'); // Check the laravel.log
return [
'project_id' => Project::inRandomOrder()->first()->id, // move this to seeder or use state
'task_name' => $this->faker->sentence(6),
'sort_order' => Task::where('project_id', $project_id)->max('sort_order') + 1, // you can use Sequence
];
}
For your sort_order problem, you can use https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/eloquent-factories#factory-callbacks
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Sequence;
// ...
public function configure(): static
{
info('This is configure'); // Check the laravel.log
return $this->sequence(function (Sequence $sequence) {
return [
'sort_order' => $sequence->index + 1,
];
});
}
public function definition(): array
{
info('This is definition'); // Check the laravel.log
return [
'project_id' => Project::factory(),
'task_name' => $this->faker->sentence(6),
// 'sort_order' => 0,
];
}
@newbie360 Thank you for the suggestion - the sequence increments the sort_order field by 1 for each record, however it doesn't account for the different projects.
For each project, the task sort_order field should reset to 1. Is there a way to implement this using the configure method?
@ella-stinnes Oops sorry, i tested on factory for only, seems some problem of factory has
so i think need to use count property to do some calculation, but the count property only visible in state
can you try this
private int $orderCount = 0;
private int $orderIndex = 0;
public function configure(): static
{
return $this->state(function () {
if ($this->orderCount == 0) {
$this->orderCount = $this->count; // marker
}
if ($this->orderIndex == $this->orderCount) { // reset
$this->orderCount = 0;
$this->orderIndex = 0;
}
return [
'sort_order' => ++$this->orderIndex,
];
});
}
and then test factory has and factory for like this
Project::factory()
->count(rand(1, 4))
->has(Task::factory()->count(rand(10, 15)))
->create()
Task::factory()
->count(rand(5, 8))
->for(Project::factory())
->create()
@newbie360 Thank you.
I'm getting an error because $this->count; is null, where is this set?
@ella-stinnes With this
<?php
namespace Database\Factories;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\Factory;
class TaskFactory extends Factory
{
public function configure(): static
{
return $this->state(function () {
dd($this->count);
});
}
public function definition(): array
{
return [
'project_id' => Project::factory(),
'task_name' => $this->faker->sentence(6),
// 'sort_order' => 0,
];
}
}
open Tinker
Task::factory()->count(4)->create()
did you see 4 ?
@newbie360 Thank you, this is now working!
For my understanding, you mentioned that the following code in the definition would loop round 20 times so it's not efficient - but any ideas why every record created just had 1 as the sort order?
It wasn't incrementing and I have no idea why.
'sort_order' => function (array $attributes) {
return Task::where('project_id', $attributes['project_id'])->max('sort_order') + 1;
},
Please or to participate in this conversation.