Unable to Access Object Property - Laravel 5

Issue Description

An attempt to echo out the name of a user from a News article is failing, resulting in the following error:

ErrorException: Trying to get property of non-object

Code Context

Models

class News extends Model
{
    public function postedBy()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
    }
}

class User extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', ...];
}

Schema

• Table: users with a 'name' column
• Table: news with a 'postedBy' column linking to users

Controller

public function showArticle($slug)
{
    $article = News::where('slug', $slug)->firstOrFail();
    return view('article', compact('article'));
}

Blade Template

{{ $article->postedBy->name }}

Explanation

The error occurs because the query in the controller (News::where('slug', $slug)->firstOrFail()) is returning an array, not an object. When trying to access ->postedBy on an array, the property is not recognized and the error is thrown.

To resolve the issue, you need to convert the array to an object before accessing the ->postedBy property. This can be done by using the findBySlug method on the News model instead of firstOrFail():

public function showArticle($slug)
{
    $article = News::findBySlug($slug); // Returns an object
    return view('article', compact('article'));
}

This will allow you to successfully access the ->postedBy property on the object and display the user's name in the Blade template.