I have set up the relationship and the models as below:
pivot table schema
Schema::create('friend_user', function(Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();
$table->integer('friend_id')->unsigned();
$table->timestamps();
});
pivot table seeder (this defines two 'friendships' to which user '1' belongs one where user 1 is specified in the user_id and the second where user 1 is listed in the friend id):
$friend_user = array(
array(
'id' => 1,
'user_id' => 1,
'friend_id' => 3,
),
array(
'id' => 2,
'user_id' => 4,
'friend_id' => 1,
),
);
User model
public function friends()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('User', 'friend_user', 'user_id', 'friend_id');
}
This is as suggested by Taylor Otwell here: https://github.com/laravel/framework/issues/441
This all works but when I run the following command I get only one result:
foreach(Auth::user()->friends as $i) {
var_dump($i->id);
}
This returns the value '3' but not 4 as expected. I understand why this is happening (as the user_id is not the friend_id) but how can I get this to return a collection of all friends belonging to a user (ie all friendships) regardless of which end of the connection (user_id or friend_id) the user is?