F
Filament•2d ago
Batman

Select::make('category_id') VS. Select::make('Category')

Curious about the behavior differences. I've seen tutorials that use Select::make('Category') and it works. I tried this method and it worked, until it didn't. It stopped working on creating, but continued working on update. I do understand documentation is Select::make('category_id') and that is what I am using, but I am just trying to get a better understanding. Does Filament (or Laravel) under the hood understand the relationship on update, but maybe not create? 
Select::make('Category')
  ->relationship('category', 'name')
  ->placeholder('Select a category')
  ->required(),
Select::make('Category')
  ->relationship('category', 'name')
  ->placeholder('Select a category')
  ->required(),
VS. 
Select::make('category_id')
  ->relationship('category', 'name')
  ->placeholder('Select a category')
  ->required(),
Select::make('category_id')
  ->relationship('category', 'name')
  ->placeholder('Select a category')
  ->required(),
Relationship: 
public function category(): BelongsTo
{
  return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
}
public function category(): BelongsTo
{
  return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
}
Solution:
It’s because ‘category’ exists as a relationship on the model so the field resolves it as such and tries to handle it appropriately. But if the relationship isn’t quite right the it falls apart so explicitly defining the relationship through the field modifiers make it work correctly.
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12 Replies
Matthew
Matthew•2d ago
It understands the relationship...but if you haven't created the model, your relationship is null.
Batman
BatmanOP•2d ago
It’s an issue of not properly creating the relation on creation, not trying to resolve a relation on null. It used to properly create the model entry (correctly inserting the value into ‘category_id’) but doesn’t anymore. It now looks for a field called ‘Category’ instead of using the relationship. This only happens on create, not update.
awcodes
awcodes•2d ago
The value passed to the make command should be the db field. That’s why category_id works. The relationship is ‘category’ but the db field is ‘category_id’
Batman
BatmanOP•this hour
Correct, I understand that’s the correct way to do it. What I’m trying to fully understand is why using ‘category’ works (resolves) the relationship correctly when updating the field, but not when creating. It’s not an issue as I am using the category_id. But it is something I ran across and was bugging me why it was working, then just stopped. So, I was trying to find more clarification on why it seems to be resolving the relation on both creating and updating, and now it’s only resolving only on updating.
Solution
awcodes
awcodes•this hour
It’s because ‘category’ exists as a relationship on the model so the field resolves it as such and tries to handle it appropriately. But if the relationship isn’t quite right the it falls apart so explicitly defining the relationship through the field modifiers make it work correctly.
awcodes
awcodes•this hour
But there could be an issue with the case sensitivity of ‘Category’ vs ‘category’ Long story short. It’s always better to be explicit when you can. Use ->make(‘category’) without ->relationship() or ->make(‘category_id’) with ->relationship()
Batman
BatmanOP•this hour
I’ll have to check on the case sensitivity. And yes, I agree, better to be explicit. Also just one of those things that I wanted to get to the bottom of. If it wouldn’t have worked to begin with I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but one of those, worked yesterday, but not today, so what’s going on type of things.
awcodes
awcodes•this hour
Also keep in mind when the tutorials you saw were made and what version of filament they are using. It can matter.
Batman
BatmanOP•this hour
Yeah, that particular is V3, don’t remember the minor revision or what version of laravel they were using then though.
awcodes
awcodes•this hour
Batman
BatmanOP•this hour
Yes, as stated above, I am using ‘category_id’ as in the documentation. But ran across this and wondered why it worked and just stopped. It was a tutorial that I had previously went through that had some things I remember doing and revisited!the code and project. Was looking through it yesterday and ran the project and all was working. Started it up today and it didn’t work. So it bothered me as to why.
awcodes
awcodes•this hour
Not sure why it would magically break, just trying to explain it. But if you got it working then all good.

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