Laravel Eloquent retrieve data from multiple tables

Question

I have four tables

**Articles table**

 id
 title
 body
 owner_id
 category_id

**Favorite articles table**

  id
  user_id
  article_id

**User table**

 id
 user_name
 user_type

**Category table**

 id
 category_name

How to get list of favorite articles (article_name,owner_name,category_name) which related to currently logged user from db using laravel eloquent?

Is it possible to do it in single line request? e.g.:

$articles_data=Auth::user()->favorite_articles->article...

EDIT For the moment i have to use statement below:

$articles_data = FavoriteArticle::where('user_id', Auth::id())->join('articles', 'articles.id', '=', 'favorite_articles.article.id')
                            ->join('users', 'users.id', '=', 'favorite_articles.user_id')
                            ->join('categories', 'categories.id', '=', 'articles.id')
                            ->get()

Which looks a bit complicated and doesn't use eloquent relations.

Solution 1

Completing @zippo_ answer, in the Controller you must reference what tables you want, e.g.

User.php

use Article;

public function article()
{
    return $this->hasOne('App\Article');
}

and in the e.g. UserController.php

$user = User::with('article')->get();

EDIT:

if you want to relate User to Article.Category, after create a relation with user and article

Article.php

use Category;

public function category()
{
    return $this->hasOne('App\Category');
}

e.g. UserController.php

$user_articles_categories = User::with('article.category')->get();

Solution 2

You can take advantage of laravel eager loading, which are also called as Eloquent relationships.

Eloquent relationships are defined as functions on your Eloquent model classes.

Eg. In Article Model

public function article()
{
    return $this->hasOne('App\Model\Category');
}

In this way, you need to define all the relationships in the respective Model classes.

for more info: http://laravel.com/docs/5.1/eloquent-relationships