Base table or view not found: 1146 Table '' doesn't exist - mysql

Question

I am trying to seed a many-to-many join table of quests and npcs in those quests... a quest can have many npcs, and an NPC can be used in many quests. I am using Laravel 5.
When seeding the Quest table, I'm also seeding the join table, but am getting the following error:
Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'clg_local.npc_quest' doesn't exist
Create Quest and Quest_NPC table:
public function up()
{
/*
* Create quests table
*/
Schema::create('quests', function(Blueprint $table)
{
$table->increments('id');
$table->string('quest_name')->nullable();
$table->unsignedInteger('reward_xp')->nullable();
$table->string('reward_items')->nullable();
$table->unsignedInteger('reward_money')->nullable();
});
/*
* Create quests_npcs join table
*/
Schema::create('quest_npc', function(Blueprint $table)
{
$table->increments('id');
$table->unsignedInteger('quest_id')->nullable();
$table->unsignedInteger('npc_id')->nullable();
});
In a separate create, I specify my relations:
Schema::table('quest_npc', function(Blueprint $table)
{
$table->foreign('quest_id')->references('id')->on('quests')->onDelete('cascade');
$table->foreign('npc_id')->references('id')->on('npcs')->onDelete('cascade');
});
Clearly I am creating a quest_npc table, but it's looking for a npc_quest table?
Quest seeder:
public function run()
{
Eloquent::unguard();
$quests = $this->createQuests();
$npcs = Npc::all()->toArray();
foreach ($quests as $quest) {
$quest->npcs()->attach($npcs[rand(0, count($npcs) - 1)]['id']);
}
private function createQuests()
{
Quest::unguard();
$quests = [];
foreach (
[
[
'quest_name' => 'Quest 1',
'reward_xp' => 200,
'reward_items' => null,
'reward_money' => 200,
], ...
NPC model:
public function npcs()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Npc::class);
}
Quest model:
public function quests()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Quest::class);
}

Answer 1

From the documentation, Laravel 'assumes' the table name to be
derived from the alphabetical order of the related model names
So in your case, that's the "why".
You can add a second parameter to your belongsToMany call to indicate the name you would like to use. For example:
public function quests()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Quest::class, 'quest_npc');
}
Do the above for both relationships
In my opinion, stick to the convention, unless you need a reason not to.