How can I query raw via Eloquent?

Question

I am trying to do a query in my Laravel app and I want to use a normal structure for my query. This class either does use Eloquent so I need to find something to do a query totally raw.

Might be something like Model::query($query);. Only that doesn't work.

Answer 1

You may try this:

// query can't be select * from table where
Model::select(DB::raw('query'))->get();

An Example:

Model::select(DB::raw('query'))
     ->whereNull('deleted_at')
     ->orderBy('id')
     ->get();

Also, you may use something like this (Using Query Builder):

$users = DB::table('users')
                 ->select(DB::raw('count(*) as user_count, status'))
                 ->where('status', '<>', 1)
                 ->groupBy('status')
                 ->get();

Also, you may try something like this (Using Query Builder):

$users = DB::select('select * from users where id = ?', array(1));
$users = DB::select( DB::raw("select * from users where username = :username"), array('username' => Input::get("username")));

Check more about Raw-Expressions on Laravel website.

Answer 2

You can use hydrate() function to convert your array to the Eloquent models, which Laravel itself internally uses to convert the query results to the models. It's not mentioned in the docs as far as I know.

Below code is equviolent to $userModels = User::where('id', '>', $userId)->get();:

$userData = DB::select('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id > ?', [$userId]);
$userModels = User::hydrate($userData);

hydrate() function is defined in \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder as:

/**
 * Create a collection of models from plain arrays.
 *
 * @param  array  $items
 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection
 */
public function hydrate(array $items) {}

Answer 3

use DB::statement('your raw query here'). Hope this helps.