gistfile1.txt

ugust 23rd 2013
USING LARAVEL 4′S MODEL EVENTS TO CASCADE DELETION

Cascading deletion in Laravel 4 can be accomplished setting up FOREIGN KEY‘s and adding an ->onDelete('cascade') in your Schema.

Read on for an alternative way to cascade a deletion using Events.


Assume you have a Model called Author which has many Books.

class Author extends Eloquent {
 
    public function books()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('books');
    }
 
}
If you delete an Author instance,  you probably want to delete all associated Books as well. This is easily done Using Laravel 4′s Model Events.

class Author extends Eloquent {
 
    public static function boot()
    {
        parent::boot();
 
        static::deleted(function($author)
        {
            Book::destroy($author->books()->lists('id'));
        });
 
    }
 
    public function books()
    {
        return $this->hasMany('books');
    }
 
}
The Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection()->lists() method is very useful in this context, as it returns an array of the specified attribute from the Collection.