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I'm building a very simple web app with Laravel.

I've built two separate Controllers, which each return two separate views, as follows:

ProfileController:

class ProfileController extends BaseController {

    public function user($name)
    {
        $user = User::where('name', '=', $name);

        if ($user->count())
        {
            $user = $user->first();
            $workout = DB::table('workouts')->where('user_id', '=', $user->id)->get();

            Return View::make('profile')
                    ->with('user', $user)
                    ->with('workout', $workout);
        }

        return App::abort(404);
    }
}

WorkoutController:

class WorkoutController extends BaseController {

    public function workout($name)
    {
        $workout = DB::table('workouts')->where('name', '=', $name)->first();

        if ($workout)
        {
            Return View::make('add-exercise')
                    ->with('workout', $workout);
        }

        return App::abort(404);
    }
}

What is confusing me is what I had to do in order to pass a single workout object to each view. As you might have noticed the query builders for workout are different:

$workout = DB::table('workouts')->where('user_id', '=', $user->id)->get();

and

$workout = DB::table('workouts')->where('name', '=', $name)->first();

On the profile view, I get an object using the ->get(); method, but on the add-exercise view, I must use ->first(); or I will otherwise get an array with only one index, where I can then access the object, i.e. $workout[0]->name instead of $workout->name.

Why is this? Shouldn't I be able to use either get and/or first in both controllers and expect the same type of result from both since I want the same thing from the same table?

patricus
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Tiago
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  • No, because a result using get() may comprise none, one or many objects; so you always get a collection back; whereas `first()` will only ever return none or one object, so it can return a straight object without needing a collection – Mark Baker Jan 27 '15 at 17:28
  • If you `var_dump($workout)` from each, what *class* is each object? If I recall, `->get()` should return a collection of results, while `->first()` should return an object representing a single row. – mopo922 Jan 27 '15 at 17:29
  • that's something you need to make it manual...!! Laravel can't do that for you..!! :) – Basheer Kharoti Jan 27 '15 at 18:40

2 Answers2

23

get() returns a collection of objects every time. That collection may have 0 or more objects in it, depending on the results of the query.

first() calls get() under the hood, but instead of returning the collection of results, it returns the first entry in the collection (if there is one).

Which method you use depends on what you need. Do you need the collection of all the results (use get()), or do you just want the first result in the collection (use first())?

patricus
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    And if there is no row found `first()` returns `null` – lukasgeiter Jan 27 '15 at 18:36
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    What about "where"? What does it return? – Eric McWinNEr Aug 06 '19 at 03:38
  • @EricMcWinNEr There are two basic query function types: modifiers and executors. Modifiers (`where()`, `select()`, `orderBy()`, etc.) modify the query before it is executed. Modifying functions return the query builder object so that you can continue to modify it, or finally execute it using an executing statement (`get()`, `first()`, `count()`, `exists()`, etc.). Executing statements return the result of the query. – patricus Aug 06 '19 at 13:50
  • Thanks a lot Patricus, I was confused at first, I figured it out after looking at the docs again. Thanks for your explanation. – Eric McWinNEr Aug 07 '19 at 01:27
3
  • Model::find(numeric); returns a object
  • Model::whereId(numeric)->first(); returns a object
  • Model::whereId(numeric)->get(); - returns a collection
  • Model::whereId(numeric); - returns a builder
joseph roxas
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