Single model relationship _count

[acip]

I am proposing an enhancement to facilitate retrieving the count of related models directly when a single model instance is fetched, say via the find() method. For getting multiple models we already have withCount, this idea targets the situations where a single model is retrieved.

This feature would streamline operations, enabling syntax like auth()->user()->posts_count. By doing so, developers could easily obtain related model counts without additional queries or method calls.

I propose implementing this feature through a trait, which could introduce a getRelationshipCount method. Additionally, a slight alteration in the Model::_get($key) method could facilitate this enhancement. Here's a rough outline of how this could be structured:

trait HasCountableRelationship
{
  function getRelationshipCount(string $name): ?int
    {
        // logic to get and return the count of the specified relationship
    }
}

and in Model:

class Model {
...
  use HasCountableRelationship;

  public function __get($key)
  {
    ...
    $countableValue = $this->getRelationshipCount($key);
    if (!is_null($countableValue)) {
      return $countableValue;
    }
    ...
  }
...

What do you think?

[gkmk]

I need to go to sleep but i cant see the value of auth()->user()->posts_count vs auth()->user()->posts()->count().
Wouldnt getRelationshipCount execute another query?

[shaedrich]

Yes, but it would do so only once since it's then a property

[MadZee-M]

But the method ->loadCount() does not help?

auth()->user()->loadCount('posts');
auth()->user()->posts_count;