Multiple many to many polymorphic relationship problem in Laravel

So I have been working on a project where 2 types of users register. 1. Company 2. Distributor

I have created modules for both and they both have separate authentication modules created using passport.

All working fine and now I want to add a feature which allow to send messages from Companies to Distributor or vise versa.

Here are my migrations:

1. messages

id

messages

parent_message_id(to handle message thread)

2. fromables (polymorphic relationship to handle FROM which user the message was sent)

id

message_id

fromable_id

fromable_type ( ‘AppCompany’ or ‘AppDistributor’ )

3. toables (polymorphic relationship to handle TO which user the message was sent)

id

message_id

toable_id

toable_type ( ‘AppCompany’ or ‘AppDistributor’ )

Below is how the relationships are defined in Models:

1. Company model and Distributor model

public function messages_sent()
{
    return $this->morphToMany('AppMessage', 'fromable');
}
public function messages_received()
{
    return $this->morphToMany('AppMessage', 'toable');
}

2. Message model

public function from_company()
{
    return $this->morphedByMany('AppCompany', 'fromable');
}
public function from_distributor()
{
    return $this->morphedByMany('AppDistributor', 'fromable');
}

public function to_company()
{
    return $this->morphedByMany('AppCompany', 'toable');
}
public function to_distributor()
{
    return $this->morphedByMany('AppDistributor', 'toable');
}

And below is how I access the messages sent and received inside company and distributor controllers.

$user = $request->user();
$messages_received = $user->messages_received;
$messages_sent = $user->messages_sent;

This works fine all the way upto here.

Now the issue is, when I run below code to receive all the messages $messages_received = $user->messages_received;

It returns all messages but it doesn’t return who sent them. Ofcource messages_received uses ‘toable’ relation. And sender ID is under ‘fromable’ relation.

Here is where I am not sure how to get the sender details along with all the messages when done $user->messages_received

How can I do that? If there is any different approach to implementing this messaging system, do let me know aswell.

Thank You.

Answer

From what I understand you should be able to do $user->messages_received->load('from_company') to get the relation to which company the message is sent.