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Version: v2.x.x

Many to Many

Many to Many (Polymorphic)​

Collection Structure​

Many-to-many polymorphic relations are slightly more complicated than "morph one" and "morph many" relationships. For example, a Post model and Video model could share a polymorphic relation to a Tag model. Using a many-to-many polymorphic relation in this situation would allow your application to have a single collection of unique tags that may be associated with posts or videos. First, let's examine the collection structure required to build this relationship:

posts
  _id - ObjectId
  name - string

videos
  _id - ObjectId
  name - string

tags
  _id - ObjectId
  name - string

taggables
  tagId - ObjectId
  taggableId - ObjectId
  taggable_type - string

Before diving into polymorphic many-to-many relationships, you may benefit from reading the documentation on typical many-to-many relationships.

Model Structure​

Next, we're ready to define the relationships on the models. The Post and Video models will both contain a tags method that calls the morphToMany method provided by the base Mongoloquent model class.

The morphToMany method accepts the name of the related model as well as the "relationship name". Based on the name we assigned to our intermediate collection name and the keys it contains, we will refer to the relationship as "taggable":

import { Mongoloquent } from "mongoloquent";
import Tag from "./yourPath/Tag";

class Post extends Mongoloquent {
	static collection = "posts";
	static softDelete = true;
	static timestamps = true;

	static tags() {
		return this.morphToMany(Tag, "taggable");
	}
}

Defining the Inverse of the Relationship​

Next, on the Tag model, you should define a method for each of its possible parent models. So, in this example, we will define a posts method and a videos method. Both of these methods should return the result of the morphedByMany method.

The morphedByMany method accepts the name of the related model as well as the "relationship name". Based on the name we assigned to our intermediate collection name and the keys it contains, we will refer to the relationship as "taggable":

import { Mongoloquent } from "mongoloquent";
import Post from "./yourPath/Post";
import Video from "./yourPath/Video";

class Tag extends Model {
	static collection = "tags";
	static softDelete = true;
	static timestamps = true;

	static posts() {
		return this.morphedByMany(Post, "taggable");
	}

	static videos() {
		return this.morphedByMany(Video, "taggable");
	}
}

Retrieving the Relationship​

Once your database collection and models are defined, you may access the relationships via your models. For example, to access all of the tags for a post, you may use the tags dynamic relationship property:

import Post from "./yourPath/Post";

const post = await Post.with("tags").find("56ab7e3d05d58a1ad250dd56");

// your relationship data can accessed in the data property
console.log(post.data);
import Video from "./yourPath/Video";

const video = await Video.with("tags").find("46ab7e3d05d58a1ad250dd46");

// your relationship data can accessed in the data property
console.log(video.data);

You may retrieve the parent of a polymorphic relation from the polymorphic child model by accessing the name of the method that performs the call to morphedByMany. In this case, that is the posts or videos methods on the Tag model:

import Tag from "./yourPath/Tag";

const tag = await Tag.with("posts")
	.with("videos")
	.find("33ab7e3d05d58a1ad250dd33");

// your relationship data can accessed in the data property
console.log(tag.data);

Monggoloquent can also select or exclude certain related model keys

import Post from "./yourPath/Post";

// with select keys
await Post.with("tags", {
	select: ["name"]
}).find("56ab7e3d05d58a1ad250dd56");

// with exclude keys
await Post.with("tags", {
	exclude: ["name"]
}).find("56ab7e3d05d58a1ad250dd56");
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