Attempt to read property "email" on int - Laravel 8
Stefan Bogdanescu
Founder & Senior Architect · 2026-06-29
Title: Resolving Property Access Issues in Laravel 8 for Easier Data Retrieval
Introduction: In the world of web development, ensuring that your application is well designed and structured plays a vital role in facilitating smooth functioning. This blog post aims to discuss a common issue faced when accessing properties on an integer in Laravel 8 while retrieving data from related tables. We'll provide a step-by-step solution to this problem along with code examples for better understanding.
1. Data Models and Relationships: Understanding the relationship between models is crucial in developing an application, as it simplifies communication between them, leading to efficient and reusable code. In Laravel, you can define relationships using eloquent ORM. For example, we have a Work model with a foreign key to the user_id column in the works table, representing the requestor. This is defined as:
public function requestor_id() {
return $this->hasOne(User::class);
}
2. Accessing Related Data: In Laravel, to access related data using Eloquent models, you can use the relationship functions provided. For example, in your controller, you would fetch all works and pass them along with the requestor email for display in the view:
$obras = Obra::all();
return view("obra.index", compact("obras"));
3. Error Occurs: However, when trying to access the email property of the requestor_id integer (which in this case should be a user id and not an integer), you will get an error because Laravel doesn't have a direct relationship from a User object to its primary key (int). Instead, it uses auto-incrementing keys for each model.
4. Solution: To solve this issue, you can follow these steps:
a) Create a new column in your User table named "user_id" and make sure that it's a unique identifier with a primary key automatically assigned to it. This will serve as the link between the Work model and the User model.
b) Update your User model to reflect this change:
public function requestor() {
return $this->hasOne(Work::class, 'work_id', 'user_id');
}
5. Accessing Related Data Correctly: Now that your model relationships are updated and properly defined, you can access the requestor's data using the relationship function from within your view:
@forelse ($obras as $i)
<li>{{ $i->requestor_id->email }}</li>
@empty
Conclusion: By following the steps mentioned, you should be able to access your requestors' data correctly and without any errors. Make sure to test your code thoroughly and maintain good coding practices for an efficient application. In case of further issues or uncertainties, consider reaching out to Laravel experts at https://laravelcompany.com/ for professional guidance and support.