To prevent getting an error when accessing a model that has no relation, you can provide a default value when a model currently has no relation. This default value is available for the belongsTo, hasOne, hasOneThrough, and morphOne relationships.
withDefault() Code Example
/**
* Get the author of the post.
*/
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class)->withDefault();
}By doing so, when the model has no relation, accessing any of its properties will not cause an error.
To populate the default value, you can pass in an associative array of attributes and values like below. Otherwise, you can pass in a closure and you can populate the value as shown.
Populate Default Model With Attribute
To populate the default value, you can pass in an associative array of attributes and values like below. Otherwise, you can pass in a closure and you can populate the value as shown.
/**
* Get the author of the post.
*/
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class)->withDefault([
'name' => 'Guest Author',
]);
}
/**
* Get the author of the post.
*/
public function user()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class)->withDefault(function ($user, $post) {
$user->name = 'Guest Author';
});
}For more details do refer to Laravel Default Value Documentation.
