How to make multiple where clause and get just only the first - php

Question

I tried to accomplish a multiple where clause but failed. I want to check if the current Date of the user is equal to created_at and the second clause would be if the user has an entry by user id. I am working on a fitness app where the User can track the km he has run. And rather to create in a database table new entries just add them to the existing entries.
My Question is focused on the problem with the if clause because the variable $hasUserEntries is not equal to null but there is no entry in the database table. It is empty.
I tried instead of using get() I used first(). But the problem is that I wasn't able to use Carbon::today() or it was maybe that I use 3 values in the where clause which I need because I can't get the created_at date only the Date YYYY-MM-DD. At the first() Statement I used a hardcoded DateTime to check with created_at and it worked. But I think I must not explain why hardcode is not optimal.
I searched on Stackoverflow and find that most answers were about using get(). It is fine but why does my else get triggered because from my point of view the database is empty(Null) so the if($hasUserEntries==null)should be triggered.
public function add_km_to_progressbar(Request $request, TrackKM $trackKM)
{
$track_dailies = new TrackDaily();
$track_dailies->user_id = \Auth::user()->id;
$amount_runned_km = $request->input('amount_runned_km');
$amount_runned_km = (int)$amount_runned_km;
$track_dailies->amount = (int)$amount_runned_km;
$track_dailies->type = 1;
$check_requirements = [
'user_id'=>\Auth::user()->id,
'created_at'=>'Carbon::today()'
];
$hasUserEntries = DB::table('track_dailies')
->where('user_id','=',\Auth::user())
->where('created_at','>=',Carbon::today())
->get();
if ($hasUserEntries == null) {
return dd('does not work');
} else {
return dd('does work');
}
}
Expected Result should be the triggering of the if statement because if the database table is empty, the user id does not exist or the date of created_at is not the same as the current date then should be triggered if($hasUserEntries==null). I want to create there a new row if this condition == null in the database.
Actual Result if($hasUserEntries==null) is true even though that the database table is empty. I think that the method get() has values saved that are not related to the database.
I hope that you can help me out.

Answer 1

i think what you should have done is checking to see if the record exist in the database before proceeding...
$checkifuserExist= DB::table('track_dailies')->where('user_id','=',\Auth::user())->where('created_at','>=',Carbon::today())->count();
if($checkifuserExist>0)
{
//proceed to query for fitness
}
else
{
//do something else...
}
with this, it will not throw error!

Answer 2

Try this if case intead:
if (is_empty($hasUserEntries))

Answer 3

$checkifuserExist= DB::table('track_dailies')->where('user_id','=',\Auth::user())->where('created_at','>=',Carbon::today())->count();
if($checkifuserExist>0)
{
//if user really exists
if( $hasUserEntries = DB::table('track_dailies')->where('user_id','=',\Auth::user())->where('created_at','>=',Carbon::today())->first())
{
//update the value of the amount
}
else{
//insert new record
}
}
else
{
// if the user does not exist, do something else...
}
remember theres no way the record for user_id would be null because first there has to be record inside the db