Which relationship type to choose in Laravel Eloquent ORM on multiple relationships case

Question

I am new to Laravel and a bit confused about some definitions of ORM. I am currently working on a simple Trouble ticket management system, and here is my question : (table: column, column,...) tickets : id, description, equipment_id equipments: id, name, vendor_id vendor: id, name

This is a very short resume of my tables and its relations, following Laravel's conventions. How can I build these models?

Basically I need to retrieve, for example, how many tickets were opened to a certain vendor (how many times I called the vendor for support).

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

What zwacky said is entirely (edit: maybe not entirely correct in the end) true for close relations, but in your situation there is nested relation:

Vendor -> Equipment -> Ticket

Then to retrieve tickets for particular vendor you would define relation on Vendor model like this:

class Vendor extends Eloquent {
  public function equipment()
  {
    return $this->hasMany('Equipment');
  }
  public function tickets()
  {
    return $this->hasManyThrough('Ticket', 'Equipment');
  }


class Equipment extends Eloquent {
  public function tickets()
  {
    return $this->hasMany('Ticket');
  }
  public function vendor()
  {
    return $this->belongsTo('Vendor');
  } 


class Ticket extends Eloquent {
  public function equipment()
  {
    return $this->belongsTo('Equipment');
  }

and to get count of total tickets for the vendor (not currently open):

Vendor::find($id)   // retrieve particular vendor
  ->tickets()->count(); // get count on tickets table

// and this way you retrieve collection of related tickets
Vendor::find($id)   // retrieve particular vendor
  ->tickets; // get Eloquent Collection

Also you may find it helpful: http://softonsofa.com/querying-relations-with-eloquent-in-laravel-4/