laravel api : nested comment and replies - json

Question

I'm a laravel beginner and want to build an API with laravel 8.
I have a nested comment and replies system for my posts
and the relation between comments and posts are polymorphic
i want to show a post and comments and replies as JSON
but i don't know my query is correct or not , because i can't understand relation between comments and replies and i just can see all comments and replies related to the post.
this is the JSON response in postman :
[
{
"id": 45,
"category_id": 11,
"user_id": 1,
"title": "title example",
"body": "body example",
"video": null,
"study_time": "8",
"likes": null,
"status": null,
"tags": [],
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:09:14.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:09:14.000000Z",
"comments": [
{
"id": 13,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": null,
"name": "sara",
"email": "sara#gmail",
"comment": "its good",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:14.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:14.000000Z"
},
{
"id": 14,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 13,
"name": "john",
"email": "john#gmail.com",
"comment": "its not good",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z"
},
{
"id": 15,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 14,
"name": "sara",
"email": "sara#gmail.com",
"comment": "why?",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z"
}
],
}
]
as you see , the replies aren't in array and it's not clear which is a replay and which is a comment
so this is my PostDetailsController :
class PostDetailsController extends Controller
{
/**
* Disply post and comments with replies
**/
public function showPost($id){
$postFind = Post::find($id);
if(is_null($postFind)){
return response()->json('not found' , 404);
}
$post = Post::with('comments')->find($id);
return response()->json([$post] , 200);
}
about comments :
comments table :
chema::create('comments', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->integer('commentable_id');
$table->string('commentable_type');
$table->unsignedBigInteger('parent_id')->nullable(); //nullable for comments , with value for replies
$table->string('name' , 45);
$table->string('email');
$table->longText('comment');
$table->foreign('parent_id')->references('id')->on('comments')->onUpdate('cascade')->onDelete('cascade');
$table->rememberToken();
$table->softDeletes();
$table->timestamp('created_at')->default(DB::raw('CURRENT_TIMESTAMP'));
$table->timestamp('updated_at')->default(DB::raw('CURRENT_TIMESTAMP'));
});
}
so if parent_id is NULL it's a comment and if has values ( id of parent comments ) it's a reply. (and reply of reply has previous reply id as parent_id )
and the models :
Post :
class Post extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'user_id' ,
'category_id' ,
'title' ,
'body' ,
'study_time',
'status',
'tags',
];
public function comments()
{
return $this->morphMany(Comment::class, 'commentable' );
}
}
Comment :
class Comment extends Model
{
protected $fillable = [
'parent_id' , 'name' , 'email' , 'comment' , 'status' , 'images'
];
use HasFactory;
public function commentable(){
return $this->morphTo();
}
public function replies()
{
return $this->hasMany(Comment::class, 'parent_id');
}
}
so can you please tell me is my query wrong?
and what should i do for show replies in an array ?
EDIT
i changed my code to this :
class PostDetailsController extends Controller
{
/**
* Disply post and comments with replies
**/
public function showPost($id){
$postFind = Post::find($id);
if(is_null($postFind)){
return response()->json('not found' , 404);
}
$post = Post::with('comments.replies')->find($id);
return response()->json([$post] , 200);
}
and the response is :
[
{
"id": 45,
"category_id": 11,
"user_id": 1,
"title": "title example",
"body": "body example",
"video": null,
"study_time": "8",
"likes": null,
"status": null,
"tags": [],
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:09:14.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:09:14.000000Z",
"comments": [
{
"id": 13,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": null,
"name": "sara",
"email": "sara#gmail",
"comment": "its good",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:14.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:14.000000Z",
"replies": [
{
"id": 14,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 13,
"name": "john",
"email": "john#gmail.com",
"comment": "its not good",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z"
}
]
},
{
"id": 14,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 13,
"name": "john",
"email": "john#gmail.com",
"comment": "its not good",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:10:50.000000Z",
"replies": [
{
"id": 15,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 14,
"name": "sara",
"email": "sara#gmail.com",
"comment": "why?",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z"
}
]
},
{
"id": 15,
"commentable_id": 45,
"commentable_type": "App\\Models\\Post",
"parent_id": 14,
"name": "sara",
"email": "sara#gmail.com",
"comment": "why?",
"images": null,
"like": null,
"dislike": null,
"status": null,
"remember_token": null,
"deleted_at": null,
"created_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T14:11:12.000000Z",
"replies": []
}
],
}
]
so i can see the replies of every comment or reply in the response , but as you see the replies are repeated and the last reply that has no reply ,has "replies[]"
What should I do to not show the replay again?

Answer 1

So a couple things here that you could do, firstly your replies have the commentable_type and commentable_id whereas these should probably be nullable since when looking at replies you only really need to know its parent and not the post as you can get this through the parent.
This then allows your $post->comments relationship to not return replies to comments.
Next you can use dot notation to add replies to your comments.
$post = Post::with('comments.replies')->find($id);
This would then return something like this
[
{
"id": 1,
"title": "Title",
"body": "Body",
"created_at": "2021-05-01T11:34:27.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T11:34:28.000000Z",
"comments": [
{
"id": 1,
"post_id": 1,
"parent_id": null,
"body": "No Replies",
"created_at": "2021-05-01T11:34:41.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T11:34:43.000000Z",
"replies": []
},
{
"id": 2,
"post_id": 1,
"parent_id": null,
"body": "One Reply",
"created_at": "2021-05-01T11:35:18.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T11:35:19.000000Z",
"replies": [
{
"id": 3,
"post_id": null,
"parent_id": 2,
"body": "Reply",
"created_at": "2021-05-01T11:35:29.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2021-05-01T11:35:32.000000Z"
}
]
}
]
}
]