Change Many-to-Many Relationship Handling in Repeater Field

[davbecker]

I've encountered a problem while trying to implement a many-to-many relationship in my Laravel application. Specifically, the issue arises when working with a repeater field. I've solve the issue for me and found a workaround. During the process, I've taken a deeper look into the Code of the Repeater.php and I think there might be room for improvement and I'd like to share my thoughts and experience.

Consider the typical example of a User and Role with a pivot table role_user. When adding a new Role for a User using a repeater field, the code inside Repeater.php seemed to be trying to create a new User entry in the users table, instead of just linking the existing User to the Role in the role_user pivot table.

Moreover, when a relationship between a User and a Role was removed, the User was deleted entirely, instead of just removing the relationship:

Here's the part of the code from Repeater.php I'm referencing:

// Create
$record = new $relatedModel();
...
$record->fill($itemData);
$record = $relationship->save($record);

// Delete
$relationship
    ->whereIn($relationship->getRelated()->getQualifiedKeyName(), $recordsToDelete)
    ->get()
    ->each(static fn (Model $record) => $record->delete());

Laravel provides convenient methods such as attach and detach for managing many-to-many relationships. These methods should be leveraged to handle the relationships properly.

Instead of creating a new $record and trying to save it, it should fetch the existing $record and attach it to the $relationship.

Likewise, when removing records from a pivot table, it should use the detach method instead of delete. The detach method removes the relationship without deleting the model instance.

$relationship->attach($existingRecord);

$relationship->detach($recordsToDelete);

It's possible that I may have misunderstood the functionality of the Repeater.php code or perhaps the entire concept of handling relationships in Laravel and Filament. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

[pboivin]

Hi @davbecker, I had this exact problem yesterday. Got help from Dan Harrin on Discord. Turns out I was trying to write to a belongs-to-many relationship which, as you pointed out, will try to create the end model through the pivot table (e.g. User -> Role). The solution was to introduce a pivot model (e.g. UserRole) and rewrite my relationships accordingly:

User has-many UserRole, and Role has-many UserRole

Hope this can help!

[pboivin]

Forgot to say: I think writing to a belongs-to-many relationship is also a valid use-case, just not what I was trying to do yesterday 😄️

[davbecker]

Please excuse the lack of feedback. I must have missed the notification email two weeks ago. :/

Thanks for your reply. I had also found similar questions and answers from Dan on Discord or even received the same answer on my own question. In the end, this was also the best solution with the least effort. :)

Without filament, however, I would have definitely used the attach / detach methods since that seems to me the more logical and easier way.

[john-f-chamberlain]

@davbecker I've been running into the same issue as you have, what was your workaround / solution?

[danharrin]

Read the comment by @pboivin

[davbecker]

My solution was what @pboivin already elaborated on in his comment. The use of a pivot model. In my case, I now even have several such pivot models since I use different many-to-many relationships in my application.

If you search for the issue on Discord, you will also find countless examples and answers from Dan on the topic, all advising the use of a pivot model.

The discussion here is more an attempt to introduce the idea of implementing in the repeater the attach / detach methods provided by Laravel.

[abanghendri]

Hi, I faced the same issue, my case is
I have some tables: product, product_variants, variant_attributes, variant_attribute_value, and product_variant_attribute_value (pivot table for many-to-many between product variant and variant_attribute_value)

I use repeater on productResource to add product_variant, and it works, so I try adding repeater inside product_variant repeater hoping that fields will attach variant_attribute_value to product_variant, but the repeater trying to add variant_attribute_value record instead

I try many workaround including answer for chatGPT, claude AI, and also gemini but none of their solutions work for me

So this is my productResource

public static function form(Form $form): Form
    {
        return $form
            ->schema([
                Grid::make(3)->schema([
                    Tabs::make()->schema([
                        FormTab::make('Main')->schema([
                            TextInput::make('name')->required(),
                            RichEditor::make('description'),
                            RichEditor::make('benefits'),
                            RichEditor::make('info'),
                            RichEditor::make('clinical_data'),
                            RichEditor::make('how_to_use'),
                            TextInput::make('shipping_weight')->numeric()->default(0)->helperText('used for shipping calculation')->suffix('grams'),
                            TextInput::make('volume')->helperText('e.g: 140 ml, 20gr'),
                        ]),
                        FormTab::make('Images/Video')->schema([
                            SpatieMediaLibraryFileUpload::make('media')->label('Images/Videos')
                                ->collection('media')
                                ->multiple()
                                ->reorderable()
                                ->responsiveImages()
                            // ->conversion('thumb')
                        ]),
                        FormTab::make('Variant')->schema([
                            Toggle::make('has_variations')->live()->reactive(),
                            Repeater::make('variants')
                                ->visible(fn ($get) => $get('has_variations') == true)
                                ->relationship('variants')
                                ->collapsible()
                                ->schema([
                                    FormGroup::make()->schema([
                                        SpatieMediaLibraryFileUpload::make('media')->label('Images/Videos')
                                            ->collection('media')
                                            ->multiple()
                                            ->reorderable()
                                            ->responsiveImages()
                                    ]),
                                    FormGroup::make()->schema([
                                        TextInput::make('name'),
                                        TextInput::make('shipping_weight')->numeric()->default(0)->helperText('used for shipping calculation')->suffix('grams'),
                                        TextInput::make('volume')->helperText('e.g: 140 ml, 20gr'),
                                        TextInput::make('cost_price')
                                            ->numeric()
                                            ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                            ->stripCharacters(',')
                                            ->prefix('IDR'),
                                        TextInput::make('normal_price')
                                            ->numeric()
                                            ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                            ->stripCharacters(',')
                                            ->prefix('IDR'),
                                        TextInput::make('sale_price')
                                            ->numeric()
                                            ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                            ->stripCharacters(',')
                                            ->prefix('IDR'),
                                        Select::make('ingredients')->multiple()->relationship('ingredients','name')->preload(),

                                        Repeater::make('attributes')
                                            ->relationship('attributes')
                                            ->schema([
                                            Select::make('attribute')->options(function() {
                                                return VariantAttribute::get()->pluck('name', 'id')->toArray();
                                            })->live()->dehydrated(false),
                                            Select::make('variant_attribute_id')->label('value')->options(function($get) {
                                                return VariantAttributeValue::where('variant_attribute_id',(int)$get('attribute'))->get()->pluck('value', 'id')->toArray();
                                            })->visible(fn($get) => !empty($get('attribute')))
                                        ]),
                                    ]),
                                ])->columns(2)
                        ])
                    ])->columnSpan(2),
                    Grid::make(1)->columnSpan(1)->schema([
                        Section::make('price')->collapsible()->schema([
                            TextInput::make('cost_price')
                                ->numeric()
                                ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                ->stripCharacters(',')
                                ->prefix('IDR'),
                            TextInput::make('normal_price')
                                ->numeric()
                                ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                ->stripCharacters(',')
                                ->prefix('IDR'),
                            TextInput::make('sale_price')
                                ->numeric()
                                ->mask(RawJs::make('$money($input)'))
                                ->stripCharacters(',')
                                ->prefix('IDR'),
                        ]),
                        Section::make('categories')->collapsible()->schema([
                            CheckboxList::make('categories')
                                ->relationship(name:'categories', titleAttribute:'name')
                                ->options(function (callable $get) {
                                    return \App\Models\Category::where('show', true)
                                        ->pluck('name', 'id');
                                })
                                ->searchable(),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),
                        Section::make('Segments')->collapsible()->schema([
                            CheckboxList::make('segments')
                                ->relationship(name:'segments', titleAttribute:'name')
                                ->searchable(),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),
                        Section::make('Age Range')->collapsible()->schema([
                            CheckboxList::make('age range')->relationship('ages', 'name')->hint('suitable for age range')->searchable(),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),
                        Section::make('Ingredients')->collapsible()->schema([
                            Select::make('ingredients')->relationship('ingredients', 'name')->multiple()->preload()->placeholder('search for ingredients'),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),
                        Section::make('Skin Types')->collapsible()->schema([
                            CheckboxList::make('skinTypes')->relationship('skinTypes', 'name')->searchable(),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),
                        Section::make('Skin Concerns')->collapsible()->schema([
                            Select::make('skinConcerns')->relationship('skinConcerns', 'name')->multiple()->preload(),
                        ])->columnSpan(1),

                        Section::make()->schema([
                            Select::make('formulation')->relationship('formulation', 'name')->preload()->searchable(),
                            Select::make('product series')->relationship('series', 'name')->preload()->searchable(),
                            
                        ])->columnSpan(1)
                    ])
                ])
            ]);
    }

this is my productVariant model

public function attributes() {
        return $this->belongsToMany(VariantAttributeValue::class, 'product_variant_attribute_value');
    }

this is my VariantAttributeValue model

 protected function products() {
        return $this->belongsToMany(ProductVariant::class);
    }

and this is migration for tabel product_variant_attribute_value

 Schema::create('product_variant_attribute_value', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->foreignIdFor(ProductVariant::class);
            $table->foreignIdFor(VariantAttributeValue::class);
            $table->string('value');
            $table->timestamps();
        });

So any ideas how to fix it?

[votkapower]

I have the same issue, the repeater cant handle belongsToMany or morphToMany relations.

Having almost same structure with Product, Option and a pivot table ConnectedModel, Filament does insert the info in the pivot table but it deletes it for some reason when using ->saveRelationshipUsing() and there is no way i see to disabled the auto relation save and allow only the manual save to avoid this.

Product class

Class Product extends Model{

  public function options()
    {
        return $this->morphToMany(Option::class, 'target_model', 'connected_models', 'target_model_id', 'connected_model_id')
            ->using(ConnectedModel::class);
    }
  }

Option class

class Option extends Model
{ 
  public function products()
    {
        return $this->morphedByMany(Product::class, 'connected_model', 'connected_models', 'connected_model_id', 'target_model_id');
    }
  }

ConnectedModel pivot class

class ConnectedModel extends MorphPivot
{ 

    protected $table = 'connected_models';

    protected $fillable = [
        'target_model_id',
        'target_model_type',
        'connected_model_id',
        'connected_model_type',
        'position',
    ];
  }

Have anyone had same problem and any idea how to handle this?

[danharrin]

You are not doing it correctly, the repeater needs to point to an extra HasMany/MorphMany relationship you need to define as well as the MorphToMany, which uses the pivot model as the related model