What this package was originally intended to do has been much better executed with this alternative package: https://github.com/kirschbaum-development/eloquent-power-joins.

One area that I explore here that is lacking from the aforementioned package is the hydration of related models. However my implementation is far from optimized so I would only use this package as a proof-of-concept.

Eager-load your eloquent relationships in Laravel using joins instead of separate queries.

composer require joeyrush/eager-joins

1. Attach the trait to your individual models or base model:

class Post extends Model
{
    use \JoeyRush\EagerJoins\JoinRelations;

    public function category()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(Category::class);
    }
}

2. Specify which $fields should be loaded in the joins on the related model:

class Category extends Model
{
    /** @var array */
    public $fields = ['id', 'name'];
}

And now you can eager-load using joins by calling the include($relationName) method on your model/query builder wherever you would previously call the with($relationName) method.

// The following will return all posts, each with their associated category pre-loaded.
$posts = Post::include('category')->get();

By default, the relationship fields will be stored on the original model, e.g. the following will return Post models with category_name and category_id stored directly on the model.

$posts = Post::include('category')->get();

If you'd like to have the related models hydrated and linked up correctly, you can call populateRelationships()

Note: the larger the data set, the more of a performance penalty this will incur.

$posts = Post::populateRelationships()->include('category')->get();

You can use dot notation to eager-load nested relations. This only works on HasOne and BelongsTo relationships

$posts = Post::include('category.creator.profile')->get();

You can eager load as many relationships as needed

$posts = Post::query()
	->include('category.creator.profile')
	->include('tags')
	->include('author')
	->first();

1. You cannot limit or paginate your queries when eager-joining HasMany / BelongsToMany relationships due to SQL limitations
2. You cannot eager-load nested HasMany or BelongsToMany relationships.
3. You cannot join on multiple relationships with the same table yet.