Eloquent models

Eloquent is the ORM built into Laravel. Every table has a model class, and every row is an object of that class. Instead of SQL queries you call methods on the model.

Creating a model

php artisan make:model Post

The class appears at app/Models/Post.php. By default the Post model works with the posts table — the plural name.

namespace App\Models;
 
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
 
class Post extends Model
{
}

Reading records

use App\Models\Post;
 
$posts = Post::all();   // all records
$post = Post::find(1);  // the record with id = 1, or null

Table columns are available as object properties:

echo $post->title;

Conditions and sorting

A query is built as a chain of methods and finished with get() or first():

$posts = Post::where('is_published', true)
    ->orderBy('created_at', 'desc')
    ->limit(10)
    ->get();
 
$post = Post::where('slug', 'hello')->first();

Creating a record

$post = new Post();
$post->title = 'First post';
$post->body = 'Post text';
$post->save();

Laravel fills the created_at and updated_at columns itself.

Mass assignment

A record can be created with a single create() call. For that, the model lists the columns that may be filled from an array:

class Post extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['title', 'body'];
}

$post = Post::create([
    'title' => 'Second post',
    'body' => 'Post text',
]);

Updating and deleting

$post = Post::find(1);
$post->title = 'New title';
$post->save();
 
$post->delete();

A record or a 404 error

The findOrFail() method returns the record, or shows a 404 page if it does not exist. In a controller this removes the need for a null check:

public function show(string $id)
{
    $post = Post::findOrFail($id);
 
    return view('posts.show', ['post' => $post]);
}

Common mistake

Calling create() on a model without $fillable makes Laravel throw a MassAssignmentException. This is a safeguard: without it a user could send an extra form field, such as is_admin, and it would end up in the database. List in $fillable only the columns that may be filled from a form.