How are you currently returning the data? For example, an Eloquent model, an array, a string you're manually encoding with json_encode(), a new Response instance?

Thanks. Currently I use the default Response instance :

public function index()
{
	$messages = Message::where('from', Auth::user()->id)
		->orWhere('to', Auth::user()->id)
		->get();


	return Response::json(
		array(
			'messages' => $messages->toArray()
		),
		200
	);
}

Add a foreach() then do an if to add the new entry to the array?

Inside the message model add the following:

protected $appends = array('is_sent');

public function getIsSentAttribute()
{
   return $this->from == Auth::user()->id ? 1 : 0;
}

What is the penfriend attribute?