How to return a single object instead of a collection in Laravel

Question

I try to return a single object instead of a collection in Laravel. Actually this code works:

public function show($id)
{
    $facture = Facture::where('id', '=', $id)->with('items')->with('client')->get();
    return Response::json($facture[0]);
}

but I Would like to know if it's the right way to do it?

Solution 1

While first() works for any kind of query, when you are fetching a model by id find() is the preferred method. Also you can combine the two with calls:

$facture = Facture::with('items', 'client')->find($id);

Solution 2

Here is the right code to get only a single object instead of a collection:

public function show($id)
{
    $facture = Facture::where('id', '=', $id)->with('items')->with('client')->first();
    return Response::json($facture);
}

Comments

[Lucien Dubois]

Great, I like this compact way to do it! Is find($id) faster than first() ?

[lukasgeiter]

find() actually does nothing else than adding a where condition for the primary key (where('id', '=', $id)) and then calling first(). But the syntax is nicer and you don't have to specify the name of the primary key everywhere :)

[Jose Mhlanga]

The first method also works fine and returns a single object instead of array!