Laravel 5.2 Follow users system

Question

I was wondering what the best way would be to set up a follow system were a user can follow another user. Can it be as simple as creating a followers table and inserting id's of users following the id of the other user? Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes it's very easy to create this kind of feat with laravel.

I suggest you this one : Friendship system with Laravel : Many to Many relationship

all you have to do is replace friend by follower.

Example :

Create a table :

followers: id, user_id, follower_id.

in your User model you will have this relationship

function followers()
{
  return $this->belongsToMany('App\User', 'followers', 'user_id', 'follower_id');
}

function follow(User $user) {
   $this->followers()->attach($user->id);
}

function unfollow(User $user) {
   $this->followers()->detach($user->id);
}

Get User 1 Followers :

$user = User::find(1);
$user->followers;

User 1 Follow User 2

$user1 = User::find(1);
$user2 = User::find(2);
$user1->follow($user2);

User 1 Unfollow User 2

$user1 = User::find(1);
$user2 = User::find(2);
$user1->unfollow($user2);