Array_unique on a laravel eloquent collection

php laravel laravel-4 eloquent array-unique
AndrewMcLagan picture AndrewMcLagan · Sep 5, 2013 · Viewed 34.3k times · Source

Not sure if this is possible but im trying to run array_unique over a collection of items i have, to remove duplicates. Although i cannot get it working.

my controller logic:

    // init models
    $jobs = Job::search();
    $countries = $jobs->get()->map(function( $job ) {

        return $job->country;
    });
    $countries = array_unique( $countries->toArray() );

although this gets a "Array to string conversion" error

Answer

Jorr.it picture Jorr.it · Mar 26, 2014

You could try the Unique method of the Collection class:

$countries = $countries->unique();

The Collection class has several wonderful methods. You could read about this in the Laravel API documentation.

I agree that sometimes it is more efficient to "query" on an existing Collection in memory (in stead of doing another query on the database using the Querybuilder class), like for example you first want to count and then filter. In .NET LINQ you can query almost equally on an IEnumerable (in-memory collection) as on a database, something I really enjoy.

Related questions

Laravel 4: how to "order by" using Eloquent ORM

Simple question - how do I order by 'id' descending in Laravel 4. The relevant part of my controller looks like this: $posts = $this->post->all() As I understand you use this line: ->orderBy('id', 'DESC'); But …

Read More
How to Use Order By for Multiple Columns in Laravel 4?

I want to sort multiple columns in Laravel 4 by using the method orderBy() in Laravel Eloquent. The query will be generated using Eloquent like this: SELECT * FROM mytable ORDER BY coloumn1 DESC, coloumn2 ASC How can I do this?

Read More
Select all from table with Laravel and Eloquent

I am using Laravel 4 to set up my first model to pull all the rows from a table called posts. In standard MySQL I would use: SELECT * FROM posts; How do I achieve this in my Laravel 4 model? See below …

Read More