Laravel 5.5 - Pass MySQL query to Javascript function/DataTables - php

Question

I'd like to pass a SQL query to a Javascript function, found in my view, which will populate a HTML table using the DataTables API. I'm having trouble converting the object array into plain JSON. How would I go about doing so?
[web.php]
Route::get('/admin', function () {
$users = DB::connection('mysql')->select('SELECT * FROM users');
return view('admin', compact('users'));
});
[admin.blade.php] (HTML)
<div class="row">
<div class="col-lg-6">
<div class="card mb-3">
<div class="card-header"><i class="fa fa-user"></i> Users</div>
<div class="card-body">
<div class="table-responsive">
<table class="table table-bordered table-striped table-compact" width="100%" id="userTable" cellspacing="0"></table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
[admin.blade.php] (Javascript)
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#userTable').DataTable( {
"scrollX": true,
"scrollY": '55vh',
"scrollCollapse": true,
"paging": false,
dom: 'ft',
"aaData": "{{ $users }}",
"aoColumns": [
{ "sTitle": "Name", "mData": "name" },
{ "sTitle": "Email", "mData": "email" },
]
} );
} );
</script>
[Example JSON object/array returned from database]
array:1 [
0 => {#195
+"id": 1
+"name": "Josh_W"
+"email": "user#email.com"
+"group": "Admin"
+"level": 5
+"password": "PASSWORD"
+"remember_token": null
+"created_at": "2017-10-12 14:42:38"
+"updated_at": "2017-10-12 14:42:38"
}
]

Answer 1

The select() method returns an array. You need to collect() the array and then call toJson():
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#userTable').DataTable( {
"scrollX": true,
"scrollY": '55vh',
"scrollCollapse": true,
"paging": false,
dom: 'ft',
"aaData": {!! collect($users)->toJson() !!},
"aoColumns": [
{ "sTitle": "Name", "mData": "name" },
{ "sTitle": "Email", "mData": "email" },
]
} );
} );
</script>
To avoid escaping your JSON use the {!! !!} syntax.
See the Laravel documentation on collections and displaying data on views for reference.