How to do raw queries in Laravel Jenssegers Mongodb ORM? - mongodb

Question

I am using Laravel with jessenger mongodb (https://github.com/jenssegers/laravel-mongodb), and I have the following object collections in mongodb:
User: (id,name,email)
and
Message (from_id,to_id,text)
I need to run the following query over the two collections:
db.User.aggregate([
{
$lookup:
{
from: "Message",
localField: "id",
foreignField: "from_id",
as: "user_message"
}
}
,{$match:{id:1}}
])
What I am wondering is how to do this in jesenger laravel (ORM/Object-oriented style)... Normally I would do Message::where('from_id', '=', $user->_id)->get(['to_id']) .... etc... but how do I run or translate the above query? thanks.

Answer 1

In your users model you can define the relationship to messages using embedsMany:
/**
* messages that were received by the user
*/
public function messagesSent()
{
return $this->hasMany(User::class, 'from_id');
}
/**
* Messages that were sent to the user
*/
public function messagesReceived()
{
return $this->hasMany(User::class, 'to_id');
}
You will also want to have the relationships on the messages model to indicate who the sender/receiver were, so that you can eager load those:
public function sender()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'from_id');
}
You may as well define the receiver as well:
public function receiver()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::clas, 'to_id');
}
Now if you want, say, latest messages from top to bottom, don't use the User model to define this, start with the Message model so you're not stuck trying to order by a relationship, when it's easier in your case not to:
Message::with(['sender'])
->where('from_id', $user->id)
->limit(20)
->orderBy('created_at')
->take(50);
If you just want all messages for the user with their senders relationship loaded:
User::with(['messagesReceived', 'messagesReceived.sender'])
->where('id', $user_id)
->firstOrFail();