View Many to Many Relationship in laravel

Question

Product model code:

public function categories()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Category::class);
}

Category model code:

public function products()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Product::class);
}

Product controller code:

$products = Product::with('categories')->get();

index.blade.php code:

@foreach ($products as $product)
    <li>Product Name: {{$product->name}}</li>
    <li>Category: {{ $product->categories->name }}</li>
@endforeach

When I use the above index.blade.php code the following error shows:

Trying to get property 'name' of non-object.

Then I tried amending the index.blade.php code into the following:

<li>Category: {{ $product->categories }}</li>

And then I got the following as the output in my index.blade.php :

[{"id":1,"name":"Cameras"}]

May I know how I can show the name of the category related to specific product?

Answer 1

belongsToMany or hasMany means this have many related models. laravel returns a collection instead of an object for these relationships. so you can't get a property directly like $product->categories->name, as categories is a collection here. you have to loop through the collection like

@foreach ($product->categories as $category)
    {{ $category->name }}
@endforeach

now you can access all the related categories to that product and get their properties.