How to select some multiple options by default using select2 and Laravel

Question

I have tables in the database as follows.

resumes

id    name    phone 



categories 

id   catName 

Then i have a pivot table to store many to many reltionship

category_resume 

category_id    resume_id

Now i have a edit Resume view where i want to display all the stored categories for specific resume. i am using select2 plugin for select boxes.

i have tried this so far

<select class="select2" multiple="true">
        @foreach($categories as $category)
       <option {{$category->id == $resume->categories->category_id ? 'selected':''}}> 
          {{$category->catName}}
       </option>
        @endforeach
</select>  

unfortunately, this is giving me an error because $resume->categories is a collection and i can not access it like this $resume->categories->category_id. i need to use foreach here. But my question is how can i make my select box selected with related categories on load?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The reason you cannot compare $category->id with $resume->categories->category_id is as you say the latter will give you a collection and you really need just to check that the $category->id exists within an array of selected ids.

You should create the array in your controller before passing it to the view;

Something like:

public function show($id) 
{
   $resume = Resume::findOrFail($id);
   $selectedCategories = $resume->categories->pluck('id')->toArray();

   return view('resume.view', compact('resume', 'selectedCategories');

}

Then in your view do;

<select class="select2" multiple="true">
        @foreach($categories as $category)
       <option {{in_array($category->id, $selectedCategories) ? 'selected':''}}> 
          {{$category->catName}}
       </option>
        @endforeach
</select>  

Also, it is sensible to check that $categories is not empty before foreaching it.

@if(! empty($categories)) 
    @foreach($categories as $category)
    ...
    @endforeach
@endif