Call to undefined function App\Http\Controllers\categories() in Laravel

Question

Please I need help, I am working on a project in Laravel, I encounter a problem when T tried to use a pivot table in manay-to-many

In my category model Category.php, I have the function below

public function users()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(user::class);
}

In my user model User.php, I have the function below

public function authors()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(author::class);
}

In web.php, I have this

Route::post('/onboarding', 'OnboardsController@categoryUser');

In my onboarding view, I have a form:

   <form action="{{ url('/onboarding') }}" method="POST">
    @csrf
      @foreach($categories as $category)
        <div class="radio-item">
        <input class="form control" name="category_id" type="checkbox" id="category_id" required>
          <label for="name">{{ $category -> title }}</label>
        </div>
        @endforeach

        <div class="form-row">
          <div class="form-group col-md-12 text-center">
            <button type="submit">Proceed to Authors</button>
          </div>
        </div>
      </form>

In my OnboardsController

I have this

public function categoryUser (Request $request)
{
  $user = User::findOrFail(Auth::user()->id);
  $user = categories()->attach($request->input('category_id'));

  return redirect ( route ('onboarding_author')); 
}

This is the returned error:

Call to undefined function App\Http\Controllers\categories()

When I change the code in my controller to

$category = Category::find($request->input('category_id'));
$user = User::where('user_id', Auth::id());
$category->users()->attach($user->id);

This is the returned error:

Call to undefined function App\Http\Controllers\users()

Here is my full OnboardsController.php code

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Author;
use App\User;
use App\Category;


class OnboardsController extends Controller
{
public function index()
        {
    //
    return view('onboarding')
    ->with('categories', Category::all());

}

public function author()
{
//
return view('onboarding_author')
->with('authors', Author::all());

}

public function categoryUser (Request $request)
{

    dd(request('category_id'));
    Category::findOrFail(request('category_id'))
    ->users()
    ->attach(auth()->user()->id);

    return redirect ( route ('onboarding_author')); 
}

Please I am new to Laravel and I have been on this for 3 days, I don't know how to solve this. I need help.

Answer 1

Your problem is right here:

$user = User::findOrFail( Auth::user()->id );
$user = categories()->attach($request->input('category_id'));
   ^^^^^^

You are calling a method categories() on... what? on nothing. I'm assuming that you want to call the categories() method inside your User.php model. So try updating your code like this:

$user = User::findOrFail( Auth::user()->id );
$user->categories()->attach($request->input('category_id'));
   ^^^^^

This way, you will relate both objects.

---

Side notes

As I mentioned, I'm assuming that you have the categories method in your User model:

# User.php

public function categories()
{
    return $this->belongsToMany(Category::class);
}

Remember that models should be capitalized.

Also, you could improve your code getting the User directly from the Auth facade

This:

$user = User::findOrFail(Auth::user()->id);

is the equivalente of:

$user = Auth::user();

Answer 2

You can achieve this with the following:

public function categoryUser()
{
    Category::findOrFail(request('category_id'))
        ->users()
        ->attach(auth()->user()->id);

    return redirect(route('onboarding_author')); 
}

Here, you get the Category by the request's category_id, and attach the logged in user (using the auth() helper to get the user's id).