Laravel get related models of related models

Question

I have a RepairRequest model, which is associated with a Vehicle.

class RepairRequest extends \Eloquent {
    public function vehicle() {
        return $this->belongsTo('Vehicle');
    }
}


class Vehicle extends \Eloquent {
    public function requests() {
        return $this->hasMany('RepairRequest');
    }
}

I would like to get all RepairRequests for the vehicle associated with a given RepairRequest, so I do

return RepairRequests::find($id)->vehicle->requests;

This works fine.

However, RepairRequests have RepairItems:

// RepairRequest class
public function repairItems() {
    return $this->hasMany('RepairItem', 'request_id');
}

// RepairItem class
public function request() {
    return $this->belongsTo('RepairRequest', 'request_id');
}

which I would like to return too, so I do

return RepairRequests::find($id)->vehicle->requests->with('repairItems');

but I get the following exception:

Call to undefined method Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection::with()

How can I write this so that the returned json includes the RepairItems in the RepairRequest json?

Solution 1

Load related models using load method on the Collection:

return RepairRequests::find($id)->vehicle->requests->load('repairItems');

which is basically the same as:

$repairRequest = RepairRequests::with('vehicle.requests.repairItems')->find($id);

return $repairRequest->vehicle->requests;

Solution 2

I'd suggest eager loading everything.

return RepairRequests::with('vehicle.requests.repaireItems')->find($id);

Comments

[Jarek Tkaczyk]

Your 2nd suggestion vehicle->requests()->with('repairItems'); executes exactly the same query as eager loading, but it won't set the relation on the vehicle itself, only return the related requests with eager loaded repairItems, so it's rather not an option.

[Tom Macdonald]

Well yes I could load everything, but then I would have to do json traversal on the client side. It seems unnecessary.

[user1669496]

Try return RepairRequests::find($id)->vehicle->requests()->with('repair‌​Items')->get();. I originally had this as part of my answer but not realizing that it wasn't going to return the original vehicle information, it was removed. But if that's all you need, I'll add it again

[Jack Vial]

They need to have this in the Laravel docs or at least have it explained more clearly if it is there. Thanks for the example.