Laravel 5.5 find($id) returns collection instead of single object

Question

Laravel 5.5 find($id) returns collection instead of single object

Any idea why, and how to prevent this? I'm having to use ->first() as workaround

public function destroy(client $client)
    {

        $item = Client::findOrFail($client)->first();
        $item->delete();

        session()->flash('message', 'Client deleted');

        return redirect('/clients');

    }

Answer 1

find() and findOrFail() need an integer to return one element. If you pass something else, you will get a collection.

Since you are asking for a Client object as a parameter, you don't have to check it. Laravel will never fire this function when the object does not exists, so you don't have to check it.

public function destroy(Client $client)
{

    $client->delete();

    session()->flash('message', 'Client deleted');

    return redirect('/clients');

}

For more information read https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/eloquent#retrieving-single-models and the following part with not found exception

Answer 2

$client is already an instance of Client as you typehint it. You shouldn't need to "find" it again. Checking if it exists and then run delete should be enough.

public function destroy(client $client)
{

    if ($client->exists)
        $client->delete();

    session()->flash('message', 'Client deleted');

    return redirect('/clients');

}