Laravel eloquent, create collection based on Column value - php

Question

I have an example table like the following:
| id | is_new | cate |
| 0 | 1 | [5] |
| 1 | 1 | [5] |
| 2 | 1 | [7] |
| 3 | 1 | [6] |
After I call the following function
$product = Products::where('is_new', 1)->get();
the collection has the following data structure
Collection {#1284 ▼
#items: array:4 [▼
0 => Products {#1285 ▶}
1 => Products {#1286 ▶}
2 => Products {#1287 ▶}
3 => Products {#1288 ▶}
]
}
I can also return a list of category id through:
$category = Category::where('type', 2)->pluck('id')->all();
I wonder is there any good way to achieve following structure (or similar) based on cate. I can use brute force way to create it by looping through the $category then add to new collection manually, I think there is a better way to do it.
Collection {#1284 ▼
#items: array:3 [▼
5 => array:2 [▼
0 => Products {#1285 ▶}
1 => Products {#1286 ▶}
]
6 => Products {#1287 ▶} or 6 => array:1 [ 0 => Products {#1287 ▶} ]
7 => Products {#1288 ▶}
]
}
Solution Update based on answer:
$product->groupBy(function($item) {
return $item['cate'][0]; //because the entry is a list
});

Answer 1

You should take a look at using something like groupBy to group your categories together. It can be done on a database level (assuming you have referential integrity) with foreign keys. You'll also get a guarantee that what is returned is an array for each category, which will make things more consistent (you won't need to make a check for if it is an array or an instance of Products, then).
You might need to change your database layout if your categories are stored like arrays, but for this you should use an intermediary table - look at many to many relationships.