Deleting nested comments and related data from laravel controller

Question

ive implemented nested comments in laravel with parent_id and there's another table votes where related data's are stored.

I've hasMany relation defined in comments model. Now when i delete a comment, it should delete all its replies and votes as well.

To delete votes i used

$review->votes()->delete(); 

which works perfectly. but i'm stuck with deleting votes for nested replies.

If i use foreach loop how to loop inside all levels which is dynamic.

public function deletereview($id=null){

    $review = Review::find($id);

    foreach($review->replies as $reply){
        $reply->votes()->delete();
        //how to do this for all levels?
        $reply = $reply->votes(); // this doesn't work
    }
    return back();
}

Kindly advise on the proper way of doing it.

Note : i've read through the cascade options from migrations but that doesn't explain anything for nested comments(reply of replies and its related data's).

Thanks -Vijay

Answer 1

// Review Model
public function deleteRelatedData() {

  // Delete all votes of this review
  $this->votes()->delete();

  // Calling the same method to all of the child of this review
  $this->replies->each->deleteRelatedData();
}

// Controller
public function deletereview($id=null){
    $review = Review::find($id);
    $review->deleteRelatedData();
    return back();
}

Answer 2

I would recommend use observer for this.

https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/eloquent#observers

public function deleted(Review $review)
{
    foreach($review->replies as $reply){
    $votes = $reply->votes;
    Votes::destroy($votes)
}

Destroy method allow you to delete multiple models. For any next level you have to use another foreach loop in this case.

$reply = $reply->votes(); doesn't work since you should use

$votes = $reply->votes;
//or
$votes = $reply->votes()->get();