Tree with max depth

[amiranagram]

Hi, I was wondering if there's a possibility we could implement a feature where we could get a tree with max depth. The issue I have is while building comments I don't want to have an endless tree, reply on reply on reply, and so on, but instead a max depth constraint. I'll try to explain it with an example.

If we have a table like this:

id	parent_id	left	right
1	null	1	8
2	1	2	7
3	2	3	6
4	3	4	5

$nodeCollection->toTree() would generate:

1 - 2 - - 3 - - - 4

If we put a max depth constrain of, let's say 1, we would get a tree like this:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

For max depth of 2:

1 - 2 - - 3 - - 4

and so on, you get the point.

The parent_id would still point to the original row, but we could have a virtual_parent_id attribute where it would point to a row considering the max depth constraint.

I have a MySQL query in my mind that would calculate virtual_parent_id for a row. And then, like in the toTree() method we would generate a collection, grouping models by virtual_parent_id instead of parent_id.

Is this something that could be achieved in this package and is somebody willing to code it. But let's have a discussion anyway, I'll post the query later, and even if nothing comes out of it, maybe I'll write a package of my own.

[hlorofos]

That's the first thing I've tried to code. You should retrieve your node adding withDepth:

Category::withDepth()->first()

and use that method

    public function getDescendantsByLevel($level = 1)
    {
        if(!isset($this->depth)) {
            throw new \Exception("No depth available, can't find given level descendants");
        }
        return $this->descendants()->withDepth()->having('depth', '=', $this->depth + $level)->get();
    }