Getting the class(name) of a related model (Laravel 4, Eloquent) without retrieving an instance

Question

$relationFunctionName = 'bananas';    //this is set dynamically at runtime, and is always a relation function
$currentClass         = 'FruitBowl'; //this is set dynamically at runtime, and is always an Eloquent Model
$rowId                = 1; //this is also set dynamically at runtime

$grabber              = new $currentClass();
$item                 = $grabber->with($relationFunctionName)->find($rowId);
$relatedItem          = $item->{$relationFunctionName};

exit( get_class( $relatedItem ) );
// returns the className of the related item (if there is one) returns the current class if there is none

I also looked into "getRelations()" which returns an array with the relational functionNames as keys filled with the related items or NULL if there are none.

I could also do with creating a new instance of the relation, so that I can retrieve the className of it and not save it.

To be clear I want the className of the object that is returned by the relational function. So in this example it would probably be Banana.

Answer 1

Ok found it. Turns out to be pretty simple. To continue from the code above, doing the following will give you the className:

$relationFunctionName = 'bananas';    //this is set dynamically at runtime, and is always a relation function
$currentClass         = 'FruitBowl'; //this is set dynamically at runtime, and is always an Eloquent Model
$rowId                = 1; //this is also set dynamically at runtime

$grabber              = new $currentClass();
$modelName            = $grabber->{$relationFunctionName}()->getModel();

$modelName is now filled with the class itself.. so if you want the className it should be get_class( $modelName );