Create a collection given a number of times keeping the key - laravel

Question

I'm trying to create a kind of dataset using laravel Collections, for this I'm using the "times" method:
function getValidData(int $amount): Collection
{
return Collection::times($amount, function (int $number): array {
$password = faker()->password(8, 12);
return [
"User #{$number}" => [
'name' => faker()->firstName(),
'email' => faker()->unique()->safeEmail(),
'password' => $password,
'password_confirmation' => $password
]
];
});
}
However, the result is not as I expected:
[
0 => [
'User #1' => [
'name' => 'ana',
'email' => 'ana#email.com',
'password' => '12345678',
'password_confirmation' => '12345678'
]
],
1 => [
'User #2' => [
'name' => 'leo',
'email' => 'leo#email.com',
'password' => '3231232132',
'password_confirmation' => '3231232132'
]
]
]
I was hoping it would be:
[
'User #1' => [
'name' => 'ana',
'email' => 'ana#email.com',
'password' => '12345678',
'password_confirmation' => '12345678'
],
'User #2' => [
'name' => 'leo',
'email' => 'leo#email.com',
'password' => '3231232132',
'password_confirmation' => '3231232132'
]
]
I can solve this using array_merge(...(Collection::times...)) but it seems a kinda off... Is there any way to solve this in a cleaner way using Collections?

Answer 1

If you would like to map the collection with new keys, you could do the following, using the mapWithKeys() function.
Example
$users = collect(range(1, $amount))
->mapWithKeys( function($index) {
$password = faker()->password(8, 12);
return [sprintf("User #%d", $index) => [
'name' => faker()->firstName(),
'email' => faker()->unique()->safeEmail(),
'password' => $password,
'password_confirmation' => $password,
]];
});
This will run from 1 to the specified $amount. Example output with 3 users:
Illuminate\Support\Collection {#2016
#items: array:3 [
"User #1" => array:4 [
"name" => "Garret"
"email" => "aurelio03#example.com"
"password" => "Vp=Et3!?w0"
"password_confirmation" => "Vp=Et3!?w0"
]
"User #2" => array:4 [
"name" => "Genoveva"
"email" => "hilda.bins#example.net"
"password" => "W?miL1Kts"
"password_confirmation" => "W?miL1Kts"
]
"User #3" => array:4 [
"name" => "Zella"
"email" => "mmurray#example.net"
"password" => "g8)"pYgjQ~"
"password_confirmation" => "g8)"pYgjQ~"
]
]
}
You could also chain the toArray() method on the collection if you prefer an Array over a Collection.