Laravel - Best Practice Update and Save Record to database using array of object

Question

I want to ask about best practice how you guys do when saving and updating data to database using array of object.

For example i have this AoJ:

[
    {
        package_id: 1, 
        posts: [
            {id: 1, post_id: "1d1479c6-c114-46d5-becd-e4715c14e57d", name: "Post 1", price: 3000}
            {id: 2, post_id: "84f37e37-d050-4efd-bd08-811ab893959f", name: "Post 2", price: 3000}
            {id: 3, post_id: "1d1479c6-c114-46d5-becd-e4715c14e57d", name: "post 3", price: 3000}
            {id: 4, post_id: "84f37e37-d050-4efd-bd08-811ab893959f", name: "post 4", price: 3000}
        ]
    }
];

For every array I will create a new row on database with new ID.

Here is what I want

How to update the data if i want to remove id 3? What is the best practice to detect that some record should be removed from package?

For now my solution is:

[
    {
        package_id: 1, 
        posts: [
            {id: 1, post_id: "1d1479c6-c114-46d5-becd-e4715c14e57d", name: "Post 1", price: 3000, remove: false}
            {id: 2, post_id: "84f37e37-d050-4efd-bd08-811ab893959f", name: "Post 2", price: 3000, remove: false}
            {id: 3, post_id: "1d1479c6-c114-46d5-becd-e4715c14e57d", name: "post 3", price: 3000, remove: true}
            {id: 4, post_id: "84f37e37-d050-4efd-bd08-811ab893959f", name: "post 4", price: 3000, remove: false}
        ]
    }
];

So on updating package_id 1 posts when it see a remove: true it will remove it.

What do you guys think? Any suggestion to make it more simple?

NB: I can't use delete everything and post new one method. because every package_id posts has relationship to other table

Answer 1

As we discussed, let me post a basic solution to it.

We have one Post model like

class Post extends Model{}

another is Package model

class Package extends Model{}

if both have primary key 'id',

the pivot table describing many-to-many relationship between them will be

package_id, post_id combinly as a composite primary key, something like

Schema::create('package_post', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->unsignedInteger('package_id');
            $table->unsignedInteger('post_id');

            $table->foreign('package_id')->references('id')->on('packages')
                ->onUpdate('cascade')->onDelete('cascade');
            $table->foreign('post_id')->references('id')->on('posts')
                ->onUpdate('cascade')->onDelete('cascade');

            $table->primary(['package_id', 'post_id']);
        }); 

There may be some other columns, depending on requirement.

The relationship will be like

class Package extends Model { 

 public function posts()
    {
        return $this->belongsToMany( Post::class, 'package_post', 'package_id', 'post_id');
    }
}

and

 class Post extends Model { 

     public function packages()
        {
            return $this->belongsToMany( Package::class, 'package_post', 'post_id', 'package_id');
        }
    }

Now when you want to retrieve it or edit it or delete it, you can use attach, detach etc methods.

For retrieve, if package id = 1 and you want to retrieve all posts belongs to this package, you can just retrieve it like

$posts= Package::find(1)->posts;

For insert, you can use

$package->posts()->attach($post->id);

To update

$package->posts()->sync([$post_id]);

if you want to change post_id 1 to 2

$package->posts()->wherePivot('post_id', 1)->sync(2);

To detach

$package->posts()->detach($post_id);

To check if the relationship exists

$package->posts->contains($post_id)