Laravel : How to take last n(any number) rows after ordered in ascending order?

Question

1. I have 3 columns id, msg and created_at in my Model table. created_at is a timestamp and id is primary key.
2. I also have 5 datas, world => time4, hello => time2,haha => time1,hihio => time5 and dunno => time3 and these datas are arranged in ascending order (as arranged here) based on their id.

In laravel 4, I want to fetch these data, arrange them in ascending order and take the last n(in this case, 3) number of records. So, I want to get dunno,world and hihio rows displayed like this in a div :

dunno,time3
world,time4
hihio,time5

What I have tried

Model::orderBy('created_at','asc')->take(3);

undesired result :

haha,time1
hello,time2
dunno,time3

Also tried

Model::orderBy('created_at','desc')->take(3);

undesired result :

hihio,time5
world,time4
dunno,time3

I have also tried the reverse with no luck

Model::take(3)->orderBy('created_at','asc');

This problem seems fairly simple but I just can't seem to get my logic right. I'm still fairly new in Laravel 4 so I would give bonus points to better solutions than using orderBy() and take() if there is. Thank you very much!

Answer 1

You are very close.

It sounds like you want to first order the array by descending order

  Model::orderBy('created_at','desc')->take(3);

but then reverse the array. You can do this one of two ways, either the traditional PHP (using array_reverse).

  $_dates = Model::orderBy('created_at','desc')->take(3);
  $dates = array_reverse($_dates);

Or the laravel way, using the reverse function in Laravel's Collection class.

  $_dates = Model::orderBy('created_at','desc')->take(3)->reverse();

Check out Laravel's Collection documentation at their API site at http://laravel.com/api/class-Illuminate.Support.Collection.html

Now $dates will contain the output you desire.

dunno,time3
world,time4
hihio,time5