Laravel 8 Docker - Many to Many Relationship not working - docker

Question

I need a little help understanding why my many to many relationship is not functioning. I have spent the last 1/2 day going down many rabbit holes, from trying to change the php.ini file so i would not get an xdebug error (you will see below), trying to install vim on the docker container so I could edit the php.ini, spelunking why migrations were not working ......
i installed laravel 8 using docker. I am not sure but I wonder if my problems are due to a message I am getting when I try to run anything with artisan tinker:
Xdebug: [Step Debug] Could not connect to debugging client. Tried: localhost:9003 (fallback through xdebug.client_host/xdebug.client_port) :-(
I am able to run most artisan commands, but it fails to make a migration. If i type sail php artisan make:model [tablename] -m to try to make a migration at the same time, the system successfully makes a model, but it does not make a migration. sail php artisan make migration and sail php artisan migrate also return this xdebug error along with the ERROR: 255 code.
nonetheless (whatever the hec than means), I created the tables manually, and used the artisan make:model to make the models.
I have installed laravel breeze so my User Model looks like the following. I have cut some of the interior of the class out to save space.
thank you in advance for your help.
btw, you will notice there is a return type declaration for each of the models shown below. Those are there because php storm warned me with "missing function's return type declaration.'. So I chose to add the return type declaration. I tried this same code without the return type declaration, and received the same non-results.
this is the user model
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\MustVerifyEmail;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
class User extends Authenticatable implements MustVerifyEmail
{
use Notifiable;
use SoftDeletes;
/* i have deleted some methods, etc. here */
public function people(): \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsToMany
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Person::class, 'user_person', 'user_id', 'person_id')->withTimestamps();
}
public function family(): \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasMany
{
return $this->hasMany(UserPerson::class);
}
}
this is the person model:
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Person extends Model
{
/**
* The table associated with the model.
*
* #var string
*/
protected $table = 'people';
public function users(): \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsToMany
{
return $this->belongsToMany(User::class, 'user_person', 'person_id', 'user_id')->withTimestamps();
}
}
This is the user_person model
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class UserPerson extends Model
{
public function user(): \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsTo
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
}
}
this shows the error in php artisan tinker.
robertbryandavis#Roberts-iMac ~/D/s/rec4life (main)> sail php artisan tinker
Xdebug: [Step Debug] Could not connect to debugging client. Tried: localhost:9003 (fallback through xdebug.client_host/xdebug.client_port) :-(
Psy Shell v0.10.6 (PHP 8.0.2 — cli) by Justin Hileman
>>> $user = App\Models\User::where('email','bdavis#xxxxx.com')->get();
=> Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection {#4381
all: [
App\Models\User {#4370
id: 7655,
name: "bob davis",
firstname: "bob",
lastname: "davis",
fields: taken out here for brevity
deleted_at: null,
created_at: "2019-02-07 13:43:05",
updated_at: "2021-03-18 23:56:44",
},
],
}
>>> $user->people()->get();
BadMethodCallException with message 'Method Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection::people does not exist.'
>>> $user->people;
Exception with message 'Property [people] does not exist on this collection instance.'
>>> $user->family();
BadMethodCallException with message 'Method Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection::family does not exist.'
>>> $user->family()->get();
BadMethodCallException with message 'Method Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection::family does not exist.'
>>>

Answer 1

I am not sure if this is your case but I'm gonna tell you how I solved this issue, and got rid of that warning:
I solved it pointing my PHP error_log to a valid location by adding this line to my php.ini (in /etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini):
error_log = /var/www/log/php_error.log
Change that location to any valid directory you want and try again. The warning should disappear from your output and now goes to the log file.