Laravel 4 hasMany with WHERE clause

Question

Not sure if this is the correct way to add an additional query to the hasMany argument but was unsuccessful. Is this possible?

public function menuItems($parent=false){
    if($parent){
        $menuItems = $this->hasMany('MenuItem')->where('parent',$parent);
    }else{
        $menuItems = $this->hasMany('MenuItem');
    }
    return $menuItems;
}

When called using

$menu_items = $menu->menuItems(0);

This just seems to return an empty array when passed a parent. Even though data with MenuItem->parent = 0 exists

Do I need to some way distinguish I'm asking for my linked items "parent" and not the main models "parent"

Answer 1

public function menuItems(){
        return $this->hasMany('MenuItem');
}

Called with

$menu_items = $menu->menuItems()->where('parent', 0)->get();

Answer 2

I am not sure about the query part but at first wouldn't passing a 0 to the function still register the $parent variable as false? So maybe just check if the $parent is not null.

public function menuItems($parent = null){
    if(!$parent == null)){
        $menuItems = $this->hasMany('MenuItem')->where('parent',$parent);
    }else{
        $menuItems = $this->hasMany('MenuItem');
    }
    return $menuItems;
}