Laravel Relationship with JSON Column

In this article, I’ll guide you through creating relationships with JSON columns in a Laravel application. Sometimes, we need to store IDs in JSON format, but when fetching related data from another table, how do we establish a relationship with a JSON field? That’s where the staudenmeir/eloquent-json-relations package comes in handy.

To demonstrate, I’ll create two tables: products and colors. We’ll save color IDs in a JSON column when adding a product. Then, I’ll show you how to seamlessly retrieve detailed color information using a Laravel relationship.

Laravel Relationship with JSON Column

In this step, we'll install the laravel 11 application using the following command.

composer create-project laravel/laravel example-app

Next, we'll install the composer package using the following command.

composer require "staudenmeir/eloquent-json-relations"

Then, we'll create a migration using the following command.

php artisan make:migration create_products_colors_table

Migration:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     */
    public function up(): void
    {
        Schema::create('products', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string("name");
            $table->json("color");
            $table->timestamps();
        });

        Schema::create('colors', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string("name");
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     */
    public function down(): void
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('products');
        Schema::dropIfExists('colors');
    }
};

Then, migrate the table into the database using the following command.

php artisan migrate

Next, we'll create a model using the following command.

php artisan make:model Product

php artisan make:model Color

app/Models/Product.php

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Product extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    use \Staudenmeir\EloquentJsonRelations\HasJsonRelationships;

    protected $fillable = ["name", "color"];

    protected $casts = [
       'color' => 'json'
    ];

    /**
     * Write code on Method
     *
     * @return response()
     */
    public function colors()
    {
        return $this->belongsToJson(Color::class, 'color');
    }
}

app/Models/Color.php

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Color extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    use \Staudenmeir\EloquentJsonRelations\HasJsonRelationships;

    protected $fillable = ["name"];

    /**
     * Write code on Method
     *
     * @return response()
     */
    public function products()
    {
       return $this->hasManyJson(Product::class, 'color');
    }
}

Now, define the routes into the web.php file.

routes/web.php

<?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/', function () {
    return view('welcome');
});

Route::get('/products', [App\Http\Controllers\ProductController::class, 'index']);

Then, we'll create a controller using the following command.

php artisan make:controller ProductController

app/Http/Controllers/ProductController.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\Product;
use App\Models\Color;

class ProductController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Write code on Method
     *
     * @return response()
     */
    public function index()
    {
        $red = Color::create(["name" => "Red"]);
        $white = Color::create(["name" => "White"]);
        $blue = Color::create(["name" => "Blue"]);

        $gold = Product::create(["name" => "Gold", "color" => [$red->id, $white->id]]);
        $silver = Product::create(["name" => "Silver", "color" => [$red->id, $blue->id]]);

        print_r($gold->colors->toArray());
        print_r($silver->colors->toArray());
    }
}

Now, run the laravel application using the following command.

php artisan serve

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 7
            [name] => Red
            [created_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
            [updated_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 8
            [name] => White
            [created_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
            [updated_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
        )

)
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 7
            [name] => Red
            [created_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
            [updated_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 9
            [name] => Blue
            [created_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
            [updated_at] => 2024-11-23T13:17:30.000000Z
        )

)

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