[Feature request] Option to add count by default

[sneakylenny]

It would be nice to have the ability to return the count in the response without the client having to query for it specifically. The feature would look like this:

// HasMany::make('comments')->canCount();
HasMany::make('comments')->withCount();

So instead of having to query like this

GET /api/v1/posts/1?withCount=comments HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.api+json

I would be able to do just this

GET /api/v1/posts/1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.api+json

But still receive the same response:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "posts",
    "id": "1",
    "attributes": {
      "content": "...",
      "title": "Hello World"
    },
    "relationships": {
      "comments": {
        "links": {
          "self": "http://localhost/api/v1/posts/1/relationships/comments",
          "related": "http://localhost/api/v1/posts/1/comments"
        },
        "meta": {
          "count": 17
        }
      }
    },
    "links": {
      "self": "http://localhost/api/v1/posts/1"
    }
  }
}

It would make my client code cleaner since I need the relation count in most cases.

If this is already possible, help me out by referring to the docs. Maybe I missed it :p

[steven-fox]

The closest thing I'm seeing that's already available to you is HasMany::make('relation')->canCount()->alwaysCountInRelationship(). However, this only results in the meta.count attribute appearing in responses when:

1. Specifically asking for it like normal via ...?withCount=relation
2. Hitting the relationship route (.../posts/1/relationships/comments)
3. Hitting the related route (.../posts/1/comments)

I recognize this isn't what you want (you wish to hit the show route for a specific post without the ?withCount query param but still receive the relation count), but perhaps you can review the laravel-json-api/eloquent package to see if you can implement this feature and submit a pull request for it!

[sneakylenny]

I don't have time for this at the moment. May reopen in the future.