Laravel Recursive Relations

Powerful recursive parent–child relationships for Laravel 12+

A lightweight, framework-native package for building hierarchical data structures such as:

• Organization Units
• Categories & Subcategories
• File Trees
• Product & Menu Structures
• Multi-level Comment Threads
• Any recursive / tree-based domain

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🚀 Features

• Pure nested tree output via tree()
• Flat descendant lists via descendants()
• Unlimited or depth-limited recursion
• Guaranteed no repetition / no duplicated nodes
• Automatic ancestry resolution (ancestors(), root())
• Optional caching layer via HasRecursiveCache
• Fully compatible with Laravel 12+
• Zero dependencies; Eloquent-powered
• Works with any model

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📦 Installation

composer require michaelorenda/laravel-recursive-relations

Laravel will auto-discover the service provider.

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🧩 Usage Example

1. Add the Trait

use MichaelOrenda\LaravelRecursiveRelations\Traits\HasRecursiveRelations;

class Category extends Model
{
    use HasRecursiveRelations;

    protected $fillable = ['name', 'parent_id'];
}

2. Required Migration

$table->unsignedBigInteger('parent_id')->nullable()->index();

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🌳 Building Trees

Pure Nested Tree

$tree = Category::find(1)->tree();

Produces:

[
  {
    "id": 2,
    "name": "Child",
    "children": [
      { "id": 7, "name": "Grandchild", "children": [] }
    ]
  }
]

✔️ No duplication
✔️ No repeated branches
✔️ Perfect hierarchy

Flat Descendants

$flat = Category::find(1)->descendants();

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🔗 Ancestry Tools

$node->parent;
$node->children;
$node->ancestors(); 
$node->root();

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⚙️ Customizing Keys

protected static function recursiveConfig(): array
{
    return [
        'parent_key' => 'parent_unit_id',
        'local_key'  => 'unit_id',
    ];
}

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📚 API Documentation

See API_DOCS.md

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🔐 Security

See SECURITY.md

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🤝 Contributing

PRs welcome! Follow PSR-12 and include tests.

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📄 License

MIT — Free for personal and commercial use.

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Last updated: 2025-11-29