Simple SQL query vs Eloquent

Eloquent has to convert to normal SQL at runtime.

Active record is strong at helping with relations.

Hmmm... how many different queries would eloquent have to run for this query:

select distinct c.name Company, c.id from companies c join properties p on p.company_id=c.id join dairy_crops dc on dc.property_id=p.id join dairy_crop_varieties dcv on dcv.id=dc.dairy_crop_variety_id join crops on crops.id=dcv.crop_id where dc.status = 'current' and crops.name = 'alfalfa' and c.active and p.active

Also, I think it would be pretty lengthy to write this kind of query in eloquent.

Thank you for your feedback @jlrdw

There are two sides of eloquent.

• An eloquent query
• Eloquent relations

So the above could be an eloquent query. Just example, not your data, but an eloquent query looks like:

$quy = Powner::query()->leftJoin('dc_pets', 'dc_powners.ownerid', '=', 'dc_pets.ownerid')
                ->select('dc_powners.ownerid', 'dc_powners.oname')
                ->selectRaw('count(dc_pets.petid) as countOfPets')
                ->groupby('dc_powners.ownerid')
                ->orderby('dc_powners.oname')
                ->get();

Results basically give:

ownerid, oname, countOfPets

Like:

5|Bob|3
4|Greg|9
2|Rob|1

Eloquent has all query builder methods available.

But if your query works just use as is, see: https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/sql-native-to-query-builder

Eloquent is technically slower, because it has to build the actual SQL query, but I wouldn't say that the difference is noticeable (except if Eloquent is not used correctly in the context). For example, the following code example will run two separate SQL queries :

Book::with('author')->where('title', 'like', '%a%')->get();

The following one only runs one query and is multiple times faster than the one above :

DB::table('books')->join('authors', 'books.author_id', 'authors.id')->where('title', 'like', '%a%')->get();

An entirely raw query equivalent to the one above is performed practically (I can almost say equally) as fast as the one above :

DB::select("select * from books join authors on books.author_id = authors.id where title like '%a%'");

As for safety, Eloquent is safer than a raw SQL query because it uses PDO out of the box (which prevents SQL injection with parametered queries). You can still use bindings with raw SQL queries though.

Eloquent is safer than a raw SQL query because it uses PDO

Well it uses PDO, and Taylor makes sure proper bindings are done, but in a regular query it would be the exact same but you have to bind the data (parameters) yourself.

As shown in the link I gave: https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/sql-native-to-query-builder

@jlrdw That's what I said in the next sentence :P I edited my post to avoid confusion.

@piljac1 yes it's always good to remind folks to do proper bindings. Sorry didn't see the edit.