Laravel - Seeding Relationships

Question

In Laravel, database seeding is generally accomplished through Model factories. So you define a blueprint for your Model using Faker data, and say how many instances you ne

Answer 1

I want to share the approach i've taken for insert many posts to many users:`

factory(App\User::class, 50)->create() 
                ->each( 
                    function ($u) {
                        factory(App\Post::class, 10)->create()
                                ->each(
                                    function($p) use (&$u) { 
                                        $u->posts()->save($p)->make();
                                    }
                                );
                    }
                );

`

This workaround worked for me after being all day long looking for a way to seed the relationship

Answer 2

$factory->define(App\User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
    return [
        'name' => $faker->name,
        'email' => $faker->email,
        'password' => bcrypt(str_random(10)),
        'remember_token' => str_random(10),
    ];
});

$factory->define(App\Post::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
    return [
        'name' => $faker->name,
        'body' => $faker->paragraph(1),
        'user_id' => factory(App\User::class)->create()->id,
    ];
});

So now if you do this factory(App\Post::class, 4)->create() it will create 4 different posts and in the process also create 4 different users.

If you want the same user for all the posts what I usually do is:

$user = factory(App\User::class)->create();
$posts = factory(App\Posts::class, 40)->create(['user_id' => $user->id]);

Answer 3

You can do this using closures within the ModelFactory as discussed here.

This solution works cleanly and elegantly with seeders as well.

$factory->define(App\User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
    return [
        'name' => $faker->name,
        'email' => $faker->email,
        'password' => bcrypt(str_random(10)),
        'remember_token' => str_random(10),
    ];
});

$factory->define(App\Post::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
    return [
        'name' => $faker->name,
        'body' => $faker->paragraph(1),
        'user_id' => function() {
            return factory(App\User::class)->create()->id;
        },
    ];
});

For your seeder, use something simple like this:

//create 10 users
factory(User::class, 10)->create()->each(function ($user) {
    //create 5 posts for each user
    factory(Post::class, 5)->create(['user_id'=>$user->id]);
});

NOTE: This method does not create unneeded entries in the database, instead the passed attributes are assigned BEFORE the creation of associated records.

Answer 4

Personally I think one Seeder class to manage these relations is nicer then separated seeder classes, because you have all the logic in one place, so in one look you can see what is going on. (Anyone that knows a better approach: please share) :)

A solution might be: one DatabaseSeeder and private methods within the class to keep the 'run' method a bit cleaner. I have this example below, which has a User, Link, LinkUser (many-to-many) and a Note (many-to-one).

For the many-to-many relations I first create all the Links, and get the inserted ids. (since the ids are auto-inc I think the ids could be fetched easier (get max), but doesn't matter in this example). Then create the users, and attach some random links to each user (many-to-many). It also creates random notes for each user (many-to-one example). It uses the 'factory' methods.

If you replace the 'Link' for your 'Post' this should work. (You can remove the 'Note' section then...)

(There is also a method to make sure you have 1 valid user with your own login credentials.)

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;

class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        // Create random links
        factory(App\Link::class, 100)->create();

        // Fetch the link ids
        $link_ids = App\Link::all('id')->pluck('id')->toArray();

        // Create random users
        factory(App\User::class, 50)->create()->each(function ($user) use ($link_ids) {

            // Example: Many-to-many relations
            $this->attachRandomLinksToUser($user->id, $link_ids);

            // Example: Many-to-one relations
            $this->createNotesForUserId( $user->id );
        });

        // Make sure you have a user to login with (your own email, name and password)
        $this->updateCredentialsForTestLogin('john@doe.com', 'John Doe', 'my-password');
    }

    /**
     * @param $user_id
     * @param $link_ids
     * @return void
     */
    private function attachRandomLinksToUser($user_id, $link_ids)
    {
        $amount = random_int( 0, count($link_ids) ); // The amount of links for this user
        echo "Attach " . $amount . " link(s) to user " . $user_id . "\n";

        if($amount > 0) {
            $keys = (array)array_rand($link_ids, $amount); // Random links

            foreach($keys as $key) {
                DB::table('link_user')->insert([
                    'link_id' => $link_ids[$key],
                    'user_id' => $user_id,
                ]);
            }
        }
    }

    /**
     * @param $user_id
     * @return void
     */
    private function createNotesForUserId($user_id)
    {
        $amount = random_int(10, 50);
        factory(App\Note::class, $amount)->create([
            'user_id' => $user_id
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * @param $email
     * @param $name
     * @param $password
     * @return void
     */
    private function updateCredentialsForTestLogin($email, $name, $password)
    {
        $user = App\User::where('email', $email)->first();
        if(!$user) {
            $user = App\User::find(1);
        }
        $user->name = $name;
        $user->email = $email;
        $user->password = bcrypt($password); // Or whatever you use for password encryption
        $user->save();
    }
}

Answer 5

You can use saveMany as well. For example:

factory(User::class, 10)->create()->each(function ($user) {
    $user->posts()->saveMany(factory(Posts::class, 5)->make());
});

Answer 6

this worked for me in laravel v8

for ($i=0; $i<=2; $i++) {
    $user = \App\Models\User::factory(1)->create()->first();
    $product = \App\Models\Product::factory(1)->create(['user_id' => $user->id])->first();
}