Laravel trying to get data from the pivot table

Question

I'm trying to get the data linked to my model out of the pivot table (many to many relationship).

I put customers on a many to many relationship with departments.

The migration:

Schema::create('customer_department', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->unsignedBigInteger('customer_id');
            $table->unsignedBigInteger('department_id');
            $table->timestamps();

            $table->foreign('customer_id')
                ->references('id')
                ->on('customers');

            $table->foreign('department_id')
                ->references('id')
                ->on('departments');
        });

The customer model:

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

The department model:

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

Now I'm trying to print out every department the customer is assigned to in the view. I tried

{{$customer->department}}
or
@foreach($customer->department as $depo)
{{$depo->name}}
@endforeach
or
{{$customer->pivot->department_id}}
...

the controller:

public function show(Customer $customer)
    {
        return view('/customers/customer', ['customer' => $customer]);
    }

However, I get several error messages, empty arrays, or straightup nothing. What am I doing wrong? What did I forget?

Answer 1

You have to have the model retrieved via the Many to Many relationship for it to have this attached pivot model. $customer would not have this pivot but everything returned from $customer->department would have these pivot models attached:

@foreach ($customer->department as $department)
    {{ $department->pivot->department_id }}
@endforeach

Though, in this case you don't need to involve the pivot model since you want information from the Department models:

@foreach ($customer->department as $department)
    {{ $department->getKey() }}
    {{ $department->name }}
@endforeach

It would be a good idea to name these relationships in the plural since they return many, not in the singular.