Get most recent row with group by and Laravel

Question

Even though there are multiple questions like this I can't get my query to return the row with the most recent date with a group by.

I have the following table..

| message_id | from | to | created_at | status
----------------------------------------------
|    1       |   1  |  2 | 2017-04-06 |   1
|    2       |   1  |  2 | 2017-04-07 |   0
|    3       |   3  |  4 | 2017-04-06 |   1
|    4       |   3  |  4 | 2017-04-07 |   0
----------------------------------------------

and I'm tryin to get the rows with most recent date.

| message_id | from | to | created_at | status
----------------------------------------------
|    2       |   1  |  2 | 2017-04-07 |   0
|    4       |   3  |  4 | 2017-04-07 |   0

Currently this query returns the rows with the last recent date.

$messages = Message::where('to', Auth::id())
                    ->groupBy('from')
                    ->orderBy('created_at', 'DESC')
                    ->paginate(10);

Solution 1

The problem is that the result set will be first grouped then ordered. You can use nested select to get what you want.

SQL Query:

SELECT t.* FROM (SELECT * FROM messages ORDER BY created_at DESC) t GROUP BY t.from

With Laravel:

$messages = Message::select(DB::raw('t.*'))
            ->from(DB::raw('(SELECT * FROM messages ORDER BY created_at DESC) t'))
            ->groupBy('t.from')
            ->get();

You just need to add your where() clauses.

Solution 2

You may replace groupBy with distinct, as it works in my case.

$messages = Message::where('to', Auth::id())
                ->orderBy('created_at', 'DESC')
                ->distinct('from')
                ->paginate(10);

Hope this helps.

Solution 3

If anyone is still looking for a short and Eloquent answer for using groupBy() with latest() just add unique() after get() like this...

$unreadMessages = Message::where('receiver_id', Auth::user()->id)
    ->where('read_at', null)
    ->latest()
    ->get()
    ->unique('user_id');

Solution 4

To get most recent record for each from you can use a self join

DB::table('message as m')
  ->select('m.*')
  ->leftJoin('message as m1', function ($join) {
        $join->on('m.from', '=', 'm1.from')
             ->whereRaw(DB::raw('m.created_at < m1.created_at'));
   })
  ->whereNull('m1.from')
  ->orderBy('m.created_at', 'DESC')
  ->paginate(10);

In SQL it will look like

select m.*
from message m
left join message m1 on m.from = m1.from
and m.created_at < m1.created_at
where m1.from is null
order by m.created_at desc

Laravel Eloquent select all rows with max created_at

View more solutions

Comments

[Neel]

This is the best answer after seeing all other answers in SO on similar questions.

[Ivanka Todorova]

@YubarajShrestha, are you getting any kind of errors or the result you're expecting is not correct?

[Yubaraj Shrestha]

Every time I use a group by it returns the oldest one, all I want is the latest. There's no error.

[Ivanka Todorova]

@YubarajShrestha can you post your query?

[Daddi Al Amoudi]

this is the best answer for my similar question.

[Maneesh Rao]

Query looks great. but when I tried to add where condition above leftJoin statement. it is not giving me any result. any help?

[M Khalid Junaid]

@ManeeshRao Can you please ask a new question and elaborate your issue with relevant details, as in comments I cannot suggest without seeing the original code or condition, thanks

[Guido Rus]

Unique is a collection method and not a querybuilder method. This is highly inefficient.

[Shadow]

This solution is against the sql standard and will fail if only full group by sql mode is set, which has been the default setting for years!

[Albert Ruelan]

This is the best answer for heavy duty queries. Thanks bud