How do I correctly hide model relationships from returning in toArray() or toJson()?

Question

I\'m currently working on a project where I\'m writing an API, and with a lot of the models, I\'m trying to hide their parent relationships from being returned, like so

Answer 1

protected $hidden = array(
        'id', 'user_id', 'user'
                           ^^^ relationship's method name which is "user"
);

if you want to hide the relationship , you have to include method name under hidden attributes. From your hidden attributes, i can see, you are perfectly hiding user relationship from Array and JSON conversion . However, if you have 'user' column in your users_tokens table, I have no idea what Laravel will behave.

public function user() {
    return $this->belongsTo('User');
}

Answer 2

I faced same question and decided to clarify this with PR to Laravel docs. Seems like there is no difference and that note was incorrect.

https://github.com/laravel/docs/pull/3351