Laravel Collection Returns Inconsistant Results - php

Question

I have a collection that will switch between responding as an array or as an object seemingly at random. What would cause that to happen?
$events = Event::all();
$events = $events->map(function ($event) use ($request) {
$reducedEventName = Helper::alphaNum($event->name);
$reducedRequestName = Helper::alphaNum($request->name);
$distance = levenshtein($reducedEventName, $reducedRequestName);
return [
'name' => $event->name,
'url' => route('event.view', ['slug' => $event->slug]),
'distance' => $distance,
];
})
->filter(function ($event) {
return $event['distance'] <= Helper::threshold($event['name']);
})
->take(3)
->sortBy('distance');
return $events->toArray();
This method is called via XHR, so I want the raw JSON response. Sometimes it looks like this (👍):
[{
"name": "Taylor Swift - Reputation - Release",
"url": "http:\/\/localhost\/e\/lgKejoPSg",
"distance": 22
}, {
"name": "Wiz Khalifa \"Laugh now, fly later\"",
"url": "http:\/\/localhost\/e\/DdLnFD3Qf",
"distance": 24
}]
And sometimes it looks like this (👎):
{
"1": {
"name": "Wiz Khalifa \"Laugh now, fly later\"",
"url": "http:\/\/localhost\/e\/DdLnFD3Qf",
"distance": 18
},
"0": {
"name": "Taylor Swift - Reputation - Release",
"url": "http:\/\/localhost\/e\/lgKejoPSg",
"distance": 23
}
}
Laravel 5.4

Answer 1

As to your question, I am not sure what could cause that to happen as the sortBy() method states it returns a collection. Do you return that exact $events as is to your blade? If so that could be inconsistency on the browser deciding how to handle the collection that is sent back to it. You could always use ->toArray() at the end of your query to ensure that it always returns an array, or ->toJson() if you don't want to do anything else with it.

Answer 2

Resorting the results tries to preserve the original keys, so I needed to discard the original keys:
return array_values($events->toArray());