Creating Many-to-Many Relationships Between Dynamo Models

Step 1: Generate the two models you will be using.

php artisan make:dynamo Faq
php artisan make:dynamo Category

Step 2: Complete the needed migrations.

Example Faq migration:

Schema::create('faqs', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->increments('id');
    $table->string('question', 255);
    $table->mediumText('answer');
    $table->timestamps();
});

Example Category migration:

Schema::create('categories', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->increments('id');
    $table->string('name');
    $table->timestamps();
});

Example pivot table migration:

Schema::create('category_faq', function(Blueprint $table) {
    $table->integer('faq_id')->unsigned()->nullable();
    $table->foreign('faq_id')->references('id')->on('faqs');

    $table->integer('category_id')->unsigned()->nullable();
    $table->foreign('category_id')->references('id')->on('categories');
});

Run:

php artisan migrate

Step 3: Add the proper belongsToMany Eloquent function to each model.

For the Category model:

public function faqs()
{
       return $this->belongsToMany('App\Faq');
}

For the Faq Model:

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

Step 4: Chain the hasMany() method onto your Dynamo instance in both controllers. Make sure your key is the name of the Eloquent function from you model.

return Dynamo::make(\App\Employee::class)
                    ->hasMany('categories', ['options' => [$categories]]);

Note

NOTE: You can see a full example of this process in the next section, Dynamo Methods, on the hasManySimple function