How to use Laravel Eloquent with complex queries - laravel

Question

I am trying to setup Eloquent for a new API that we're working on. I am using relations in a model.
Some relations are complex and aren't really suitable for a quick chained Query Builder statement. For example, I am trying to return metrics and some of those metrics are complex. Such as counting the total clicks generated by a user (it's not just a simple COUNT(*)). Here is the code that I have now:
<?php
namespace App\Models\Eloquent;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Affiliate extends Model
{
protected $table = 'user';
public function profile()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\Models\Eloquent\Profile', 'id');
}
public static function clicks()
{
$sql = "SELECT
user_id,
COUNT(*) / SUM(dummy_metric) AS total_clicks
FROM clicks
WHERE something = 'true'
AND another_thing > 100 # dummy filter for example only
GROUP BY user_id";
$rows = DB::select(DB::raw($sql));
// (PSUEDO CODE) THIS IS WHAT I'D LIKE TO DO IDEALY
return $this->belongsTo($rows, user_id);
}
Possible? I'd like to be able to write our own queries without relying on Query Builder all of the time, but I still want to be able to join the relation to Eloquent.

Answer 1

Assuming you have Clicks model defined, find below the eloquent version of your query.
Click::select(DB:raw("user_id, COUNT(*) / SUM(dummy_metric) AS total_clicks"))
->where(/*condition*/)->groupBy("user_id")->get();
Note:
1) Where method accepts an array of conditions, so you can add more than one condition in same method. Reference
Update
I think thius should be your clicks() method:
public function clicks(){
return $this->hasMany('App\Models\Eloquent\Click',/*relevant ids*/);
}
And, now where you want a count of clicks(in controller for example), you can use following query:
$user = User::find("user_id")->with('clicks')->get();
$clicks = $user->clicks()->count();
To make it more efficient, refer to this article on Tweaking Eloquent relations
Update 2:
You can use Accessor function to retrieve total count
Add following 2 methods in User model.(change clicksCount string to anything you need )
public function clicksCount(){
return $this->hasOne('App\Models\Eloquent\Click')
->select(DB:raw("user_id, COUNT(*) count"))
->groupBy("user_id");
}
public function getClicksCountAttribute(){
return $this->clicksCount->count();
}
Now, you can use $user->clicksCount; to get the count directly.
If you are using Laravel 5.4, you can use withCount() method to easily retrieve the count. Counting Related Models