Eager loading returning ID instead of model

Question

I have an issue with Eager Loading using the below code.

Issue is with the Status model

$ticket = Ticket::where('id', $id)->with(['customer', 'status', 'notes' => function($query) {
    $query->orderBy('updated_at', 'desc');
}])->first();

If I do,

return response()->json($ticket);

I get the expected response, all OK

{"id":1,"customer_id":10001,"ztk_ticket_no":"ZTK0000001","status":{"id":1,"value":"Open","deleted_at":null,"created_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20","updated_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20"},"deleted_at":null,"created_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20","updated_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20","customer":{"id":1,"customer_id":10001,"title":"Test Company","deleted_at":null,"created_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20","updated_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20"},"notes":[{"id":1,"ticket_id":1,"note":"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, ","status":1,"deleted_at":null,"created_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20","updated_at":"2016-02-13 01:36:20"}]}

But if I do

return response()->json($ticket->status);

I get the id of the status, not the Model

1

Status Model:

class Status extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'statuses';
}

Ticket Model:

class Ticket extends Model
{
    public function status() {
        return $this->hasOne('App\Status', 'id', 'status');
    }
}

Answer 1

According to your relationship definition, it looks like your Ticket model has a field named status. If you have a field name on your model with the same name as one of your relationship methods, when you do $ticket->status, you are going to get the value of field, not the related object.

So, based on what I can see, it looks like your tickets.status field is a foreign key to the statuses table. If this is the case, then there are a few issues.

First, your status field should be renamed to status_id. This will help remove the ambiguity between the field name and the related object.

Second, since your Ticket model contains the foreign key, it is on the belongsTo side of the relationship. It may sound a little weird, but a Status can have many Tickets, but a Ticket belongs to a Status. So, you need to change your status() relationship from hasOne to belongsTo.

If you rename the status field to status_id, you can change your method to this:

public function status() {
    return $this->belongsTo('App\Status');
}

With this, you access the id field with $ticket->status_id, and the related Status object with $ticket->status.

If you can't change your status field, then it would be a good idea to rename your status() relationship method, so your method should look something like this:

// relationship method renamed
public function relatedStatus() {
    // second parameter required since foreign key does not conform to Laravel conventions
    return $this->belongsTo('App\Status', 'status');
}

With this, you access the id field with $ticket->status, and the related status object with $ticket->relatedStatus.

Answer 2

Change your code to

$ticket->status()->get();

This would return the object.

 $ticket->status;

This one will only return the raw id.