Laravel 5.1 – BelongsTo relationship returns null

AppUser

class User

public function status() {

    return $this->belongsTo('AppUserStatus', 'user_status_id', 'id');
}

AppUserStatus

class UserStatus

protected $fillable = ['id'];

public function user() {

    return $this->hasMany('AppUser', 'user_status_id', 'id');
}

I already have the $user object from a simple User::find() query with some fields, then I try to access the status object by lazy loading it with $user->load('status') method.

I’m following the docs, but it seems useless since $user->status still returns null.

public function foo(User $user) {

    $user->load('status');
    $user->status // returns null
}

What am I doing wrong?

——— SOLUTION ———

Actually, to lazy load any relationship, the foreign key value needs to be stored in the model object.

In my find operation, I wasn’t querying the user_status_id field. When I added this field into the query, the $user->status statement started to return the UserStatus model.

I don’t think this information is written on the Laravel docs, it may be simple, but it took me some time to figure that out.

Answer

Actually, to lazy load any relationship, the foreign key value needs to be stored in the model object.

In my find operation, I wasn’t querying the user_status_id field. When I added this field into the query, the $user->status statement started to return the UserStatus model.

I don’t think this information is written on the Laravel docs, it may be simple, but it took me some time to figure that out.