Better way of Seeding a Pivot Table

Question

I have the following tables users , roles and the pivot table role_user with the following table structure

users

• id
• username
• password

roles

• id
• role

role_user

• id
• role_id

• user_id

      <?php
           class PivotTableSeeder extends Seeder {
               public function run()
               {
                // Seeds the roles table
                  DB::table('roles')->delete();
  
                  DB::table('role_user')->insert(array(
                  array('user_id' => 1, 'role_id' => 1),
                  array('user_id' => 2, 'role_id' => 2),
                  array('user_id' => 3, 'role_id' => 1),
                  array('user_id' => 3, 'role_id' => 3),
                  array('user_id' => 3, 'role_id' => 5)
              ));
              }
          }
  

The pivot table is seeded using DB select

Is there a better way to seed the tables, including the pivot table?

I was thinking maybe when I seed my users table, it will also seed the role_user table instead of manually inserting the data into the pivot table.

Example:

roles

• id = 1
• role = encoder
• id = 2
• role = tech
• id = 3
• role = sales

users

• id = 1
• username = user
• password = pass
• id = 2
• username = user2
• password = pass2

role_user

• id = 1
• user_id = 1
• role_id = 1
• id = 2
• user_id = 1
• role_id = 2
• id = 3
• user_id = 2
• role_id = 3

---

Edit

I am seeding my users table by using this Eloquent. Is there anyway that while seeding the User, the role_user will also get updated?

User::create(array(
    'id' => '1',
    'username' => 'user',
    'password' => 'pass'
));
User::create(array(
    'id' => '2',
    'username' => 'user2',
    'password' => 'pass2'
));

Answer 1

You may try this (Assuming that you have already seeded roles):

$user = User::create(['id' => '1', 'username' => 'user', 'password' => 'pass']);
$user->roles()->sync([1,2]); // array of role ids

$user = User::create(['id' => '2', 'username' => 'user2', 'password' => 'pass2']);
$user->roles()->sync([3,4]); // array of role ids

I've used [] instead of array(), if your PHP is prior to ver-5.4 then you should use array().

Answer 2

For testing purposes I use pretty simple and fast method like below.

Imagine we have users and categories with pivot table (this comes from JeffreyWay's generators btw):

<?php

// Composer: "fzaninotto/faker": "v1.3.0"
use Faker\Factory as Faker;

class UsersTableSeeder extends Seeder {

    public function run()
    {
        $faker = Faker::create();

        foreach(range(1, 100) as $index)
        {
            User::create([
                'username'   => $username = $faker->userName,
                'email'      => $faker->email,
                'password'   => Hash::make($username),
                'account_id' => $index
            ]);
        }
    }

}

// all other seeders look the same, so I paste just the code that matters:
// Categories
    foreach(range(1, 30) as $index)
    {
        Category::create([
            'name' => $faker->word
        ]);
    }

// pivot table
    foreach(range(1, 50) as $index)
    {
        DB::table('category_user')->insert([
            'category_id' => rand(1,30),
            'user_id' => $faker->unique()->randomNumber(1, 100)
        ]);
    }

Answer 3

For n:m Relationships, where I need to attach random entries, I use this simple but efficient Seeder code, that only uses real ids:

    $faker = Faker\Factory::create();

    $limit = 100;

    for ($i = 0; $i < $limit; $i++) {
        $newrow = *Yourmodel*::create ([
            'email' => $faker->word . rand(0, 9999) . '@test.com' ,
          ...
        ]);

        $ids = $faker->randomElements( \App\YourOtherModel::select('id')->get()->toArray(), rand(1,*3*) );
        foreach($ids as $id) {
            $newrow->*your_relationship*()->attach( $id );
   }

Answer 4

I'm not sure how others feel about this, but when seeding the database, I like to use the actual models for the seeding, that way you can use all the handy functions that come with inserting related models.

If you're seeding the user and roles with predefined ids, then it's easy.

class UserSeeder extends Seeder
{

    public function run()
    {
        DB::table('users')->truncate();
        DB::table('roles')->truncate();
        DB::table('user_roles')->truncate();

        $users = [];

        $user = User::create(['id' => 1, 'blah' => 'honk']);
        $users[$user->id] = $user;
        $user = User::create(['id' => 2, 'blah' => 'honk']);
        $users[$user->id] = $user;
        // etc etc

        $roles = [];
        $role = Role::create(['id' => 1, 'blah' => 'honk']);
        $roles[$role->id] = $role;
        // etc etc

        $user[1]->roles()->sync(1);
        $user[2]->roles()->sync(2);
        $user[3]->roles()->sync(1, 3, 5);
    }

}

In a recent application I wrote, I created a seeder that created the ACL groups, then permissions, assigned the permissions to the specific groups, then randomly created somewhere between 10-30 (using rand) users and randomly assigned them to different groups.

Let me know if anything is unclear.