CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phparrayslaraveleloquentarray-filter
Mugoma J. Okomba
Mugoma J. Okomba

Reputation: 3295

Accessing eloquent list as an array of objects in Laravel 4

I have a Laravel query returning a list. I need to filter this list and pick a random item after filtering.

$places = getPlaces();
if ( count($places) > 0) {           
    $places = array_filter($places, "filter"); // 2016/08/25: see http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-filter.php

    $randomPlace = $places[rand(0, count($places) - 1)];
}

This give an error:

array_filter() expects parameter 1 to be array, object give

If I cast $places to array the error goes but I get nothing:

$places = getPlaces();
if ( count($places) > 0) {
    $places = (array)$places;      
    $places = array_filter($places, "filter");

    $randomPlace = $places[rand(0, count($places) - 1)];
}

When I check count($places) I see there's only one item. The resultset has several.

To get around the filter issue I use Eloquent's toArray():

if ( count($places) > 0) {

    $places = $places->toArray();

    $places = array_filter($places, "filter");

    if ( count($places) > 0) {
        $randomPlace = $places[rand(0, count($places) - 1)];
    }

}

This works for filter but I land into a couple of challenges:

  1. I can't access $randomPlace as an object e.g. $randomPlace->name. I have to use array access, $randomPlace['name']. Since there are other methods expecting an object this means having to change/convert all these methods.

  2. $places[rand(0, count($places) - 1)] gives an error, e.g.:

    Undefined offset: 4

Other than having to change all methods to use arrays instead of objects (thereby loosing out on functionality), at the moment the only other method off my head is to create a function that iterates over $places and and puts the objects into an array.

Is there a better way of handling this?

Thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1462

Answers (1)

Chris White
Chris White

Reputation: 953

It looks like you're working with a collection and are tripping up when converting it to an array in which you can use array_filter on. Instead, use the built-in collection methods for filtering and retrieving a random element:

$randomItem = $places->filter('filter')->random();

In the example above, the argument to the filter() method is the name of your filter function. I'd recommend calling it something other than filter to increase readability. :)

Upvotes: 2

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