eloquent - Laravel - retrieve direct/indirect pivot table subscribers -

i having hard time figuring out in laravel; subscriber relationship have 2 pivot tables:

a subscriber can subscribe question:

question_subscriber id   question_id  subscriber_id 1        2            3 2        2            4 3        3            1 4        3            2 

a subscriber can subscribe user:

user_subscriber id  user_id  subscriber_id 1      1         6 2      1         7 3      2         1 

normal questions table question owner:

questions id  question  user_id 1     abc?       1 2     xyz?       1 3     123?       2 

the pivot relationships setup correctly in models, , can pull out foreach, subscribers question, $question->subscribersquestion $subscriber, or subscribers user, $user->subscribersuser $subscriber:

but how can pull out all subscribers belong user (directly or indirectly (through question own))?

for example, these should retrieved subscribers user 1:

6 // subscribed directly 7 // subscribed directly 3 // subscribed through question 4 // subscribed through question 

any idea on efficient way in laravel?

this easiest way:

// assuming setup:  user hasmany question user belongstomany user (subscribers - direct) question belongstomany user (subscribers - indirect)  // don't need this, since pass reference closure, // clarity let's initialize variable: $indirectsubscribers = null;  $user = user::with(['questions.subscribers' => function ($q) use (&$indirectsubscribers) {   // indirect subscribers (cost of additional query)   $indirectsubscribers = $q->get()->unique(); }])->find($userid);  // merge directs subscribers $allsubscribers = $user->subscribers->merge($indirectsubscribers);