Laravel's Eloquent ORM is a powerful tool for interacting with your database using expressive, fluent syntax. While basic CRUD operations are straightforward, Eloquent also offers advanced features for complex queries, relationships, and performance optimization.

1. Eager Loading and Lazy Eager Loading

To avoid the N+1 query problem, use eager loading to fetch related models in a single query:

// Eager load 'posts' relationship
$users = User::with('posts')->get();

// Lazy eager load after initial query
$users->load('profile');
    

2. Query Scopes

Scopes allow you to encapsulate common query logic in your models:

// In User model
public function scopeActive($query) {
    return $query->where('active', 1);
}

// Usage
$activeUsers = User::active()->get();
    

3. Advanced Relationships

Eloquent supports many relationship types, including polymorphic and many-to-many. Example: Polymorphic relationship for comments:

// In Comment model
public function commentable() {
    return $this->morphTo();
}

// In Post and Video models
public function comments() {
    return $this->morphMany(Comment::class, 'commentable');
}
    

4. Subqueries and Selects

Use subqueries for advanced data retrieval:

use IlluminateDatabaseEloquentBuilder;

$latestPosts = User::addSelect(['latest_post' => Post::select('title')
    ->whereColumn('user_id', 'users.id')
    ->orderByDesc('created_at')
    ->limit(1)
])->get();
    

5. Chunking and Cursors for Large Datasets

For processing large datasets, use chunk() or cursor() to avoid memory issues:

// Chunking
User::chunk(100, function ($users) {
    foreach ($users as $user) {
        // Process user
    }
});

// Cursors (lazy loading)
foreach (User::cursor() as $user) {
    // Process user
}
    

6. Performance Tips

• Use select() to limit columns retrieved.
• Index your database columns for faster queries.
• Cache query results for expensive operations.
• Profile queries with Laravel Debugbar or Telescope.

Conclusion

Mastering Eloquent's advanced features allows you to write cleaner, more efficient, and more maintainable database code in your Laravel applications. Explore the documentation and experiment with these techniques to take your database interactions to the next level.