Search using dynamically created anchor href in laravel

Question

I want to include a dynamicaly created anchor that links to a search page that displays all users from that company. Users are allowed to be affiliated with more than one company. The information is being pulled from a mysql database example:

John Doe is affiliated with:

• Pepsi Company
• Cold Drinks Inc Company
• Sports Drinks Company

John Doe is affiliated with:

<a href="search/useraffiliation1"> Pespi Company</a>
<a href="search/useraffiliation2"> Cold Drinks Inc Company</a>
<a href="search/useraffiliation3"> Sports Drinks Company</a>

1.Whats the best way to go about doing this.

2.Whats the best way to structure my database. Should I use a single column for each affiliation or put all the affiliations in one.

Answer 1

EDIT: I just realized that I was responding to the comments and didn't really answer your original question, so I updated my examples below.

If you are using Laravel and artisan fully to build your database and track migrations, here is what you need to do for the 3 tables . You want the affiliations table to hold the id of the user and the id of the company.

First, create 3 database migrations in your command line:

php artisan make:migration create_users_table --table="users"
php artisan make:migration create_companies_table --table="companies"
php artisan make:migration create_affiliations_table --table="affiliations"

You will now have 3 migration files in your /database/migrations folder.

The files will look like this:

<?php

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

class CreateTableUsers extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->increments('id')->unsigned();
            $table->string('email')->unique();
            $table->string('password', 60);
            //more fields @see https://laravel.com/docs/master/migrations#creating-columns
            $table->rememberToken();
            $table->timestamps();
            $table->softDeletes();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('users');
    }
}

--

<?php

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

class CreateTableCompanies extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('companies', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->increments('id')->unsigned();
            $table->string('name', 100);
            //more fields @see https://laravel.com/docs/master/migrations#creating-columns
            $table->timestamps();
            $table->softDeletes();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('companies');
    }
}

--

<?php

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

class CreateTableAffiliations extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('affiliations', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();
            $table->integer('company_id')->unsigned();
            $table->primary(['user_id', 'company_id']);
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('affiliations');
    }
}

Now run artisan one more time in your console to create the tables.

php artisan migrate

You have several options at this point when you query your database. For example, a raw SQL query might look like:

SELECT c.* FROM affiliations a JOIN companies c ON (a.company_id=c.id) WHERE a.user_id=1;

or

SELECT u.* FROM affiliations a JOIN users u ON (a.user_id=u.id) WHERE a.company_id=1;

However, it's probably better to use eloquent models since you are using Laravel. I like to create Db models in my App/Db folder. For example, this is what the /App/Db/Companies.php may look like.

<?php 

namespace App\Db;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

class Companies extends Model {

    use SoftDeletes;

    public function affiliations() {
        return $this->hasMany('App\Db\Affiliations', 'company_id', 'id');
    }
}

THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, AND NOT TESTED.

Refer to https://laravel.com/docs/master/eloquent-relationships#defining-relationships

You would make your other Db table models (Affiliations & Users) too, and in your application, a query might look like this:

class CompanyController extends Controller {

    public function search($id) {
        $company = Companies::find($id);
        $company->load('affiliations.users');

        foreach ($company->affiliation as $aff) {
            echo $aff->user->name;
        }       
    }
}

You could switch that around too where you find the users that have an affiliation with that company id. More on querying relations: https://laravel.com/docs/master/eloquent-relationships#querying-relations

There are several ways to achieve your desired result, so really read up on those eloquent relationships! It seems like a lot of work for something so simple but when you are building larger applications it's very handy.

Pertaining to your original question, the route for this could look like:

Route::get('/search/company/{id}', 'CompanyController@search');