How to create a nested-list of categories in Laravel?

Question

How can I create a nested list of categories in Laravel?

I want to create something like this:

• --- Php
• ------ Laravel
• --------- Version
• ------------ V 5.7
• --- Python
• ------ Django
• --- Ruby
• ..........

The fields of my categories table are:

id | name | parent_id

If I have to add another column like depth or something, please tell me.

I am using this following code, but I think it is not the best solution. Besides, I can not pass this function to my view.

function rec($id)
{
     $model = Category::find($id);
     foreach ($model->children as $chield) rec($chield->id);
     return $model->all();
}

function main () {
    $models = Category::whereNull('parent_id')->get();
    foreach ($models as $parent) return rec($parent->id);
}

Answer 1

You can make a self-referential model:

class Category extends Model {

    public function parent()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('Category', 'parent_id');
    }

    public function children()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('Category', 'parent_id');
    }
}

and make a recursive relation:

// recursive, loads all descendants
public function childrenRecursive()
{
   return $this->children()->with('childrenRecursive');
}

and to get parents with all their children:

$categories = Category::with('childrenRecursive')->whereNull('parent')->get();

Lastly you need to just iterate through the children until children is null. There can definitely be some performance issues with this if you are not careful. If this is a fairly small dataset that you plan to remain that way it shouldn't be an issue. If this is going to be an ever growing list it might make sense to have a root_parent_id or something to query off of and assemble the tree manually.