Hello.

I cannot get the "many to many" relation working on product filtering. I would just greatly appreciate if someone would help me learn, how it is supposed to be set up.

I have an array of category id's but i cannot figure out, the "Laravel way" to do this right.

Thank you so much in advance.

My DB schema:

ads | categories | ad_category_rels

My controller:

$query = DB::table('ads');

if($request->gender) {
    $gender = $request->gender;
    if ($gender != 0) {
        $query->where("gender", "=", "$gender");
    }
}

if($request->min_age) {
    $min_age = $request->min_age;
    $query->where("from_year", ">=", "$min_age");
}

if($request->max_age) {
    $max_age = $request->max_age;
    $query->where("to_year", "<=", "$max_age");
}

if($request->min_price) {
    $min_price = $request->min_price;
    $query->where("price", ">=", "$min_price");
}

if($request->max_price) {
    $max_price = $request->max_price;
    $query->where("price", "<=", "$max_price");
}

if($request->sort_order) {
    $sort_order = strtoupper($request->sort_order);
} else {
    $sort_order = 'DESC';
}

if($request->sort) {
    $sort = $request->sort;
    $query->orderBy("$sort", $sort_order);
}

if($request->type) {
    $type = $request->type;
    if($type == 'digitale' || $type == 'digital') {
        $type = '1';
    } else if ($type == 'fysiske' || $type == 'physical') {
        $type = '2';
    }
    $query->where("type", "=", "$type");
}

if($request->categories) {
    $categories = explode(",", $request->categories);
    foreach ($categories as $category) {
        // Category ids
    }
}

$limit = 5;

$page = $request->page;
$offset = ($page * $limit) - $limit;

$query->offset($offset);
$query->limit($limit);

$ads = $query->paginate($limit);