Posted: 26-09-2020

Using data_get to safe check if eloquent relation exists in Laravel

Laravel provides a rich of set of helper function, one of my favourite it's data_get.

Often I use this function in my Api when I need to check if a model has a given relation.

Check the following code

public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'title' => $this->title,
            'description' => $this->description,
            'category' => this->product->category->title,           
            'product' => $this->product->title,
            'is_active' => $this->is_active,
        ];
    }

If the product does not have a category the Api crash.

To solve this issue I find it's very useful to use the Laravel data_get helper. 

According to Laravel documentation, the data_get() helper allows you to get a value from an array or object with dot notation.

So you can secure your code in this way:

public function toArray($request)
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'title' => $this->title,
            'description' => $this->description,
            //if relation exists return the value otherwise return null 
            'category' => data_get($this, 'product.category.title'),           
            'product' => data_get($this, 'product.title'),
            'is_active' => $this->is_active,
        ];
    }

• Tags:
• Eloquent
• Laravel