Laravel 5.4 Query Builder Implementing orderBy with groupBy - php

Question

I wanted to manipulate how data will be shown with cost layering methods such as LIFO and FIFO.
To get things started, here's my query:
$items = Inventory::whereActive('1')
->where('quantity', '>', 0)
->where(function($query) use($request) {
$query->where('name', 'LIKE', '%'.$request->search.'%')
->orwhere('ref_code', 'LIKE', '%'.$request->search.'%');
})->orderBy('created_at', 'dsc')
->groupBy('ref_code')
->get();
I wanted to use groupBy with ref_code so it will only show one data with the same ref_code, and I used orderBy with created_at and dsc for descending so that one data that will be shown will be the last one that was added. (Well, that's what I think that would happen).
But unfortunately, when I used groupBy, it only shows the first added data. How can I select the last data? I thought orderBy was gonna do the job but it didn't.

Answer 1

You can use an alternative way for this. If you have auto incrementing primary key as id then you can do it like,
$ids = Inventory::whereActive('1')
->where('quantity', '>', 0)
->where(function($query) use($request) {
$query->where('name', 'LIKE', '%'.$request->search.'%')
->orwhere('ref_code', 'LIKE', '%'.$request->search.'%');
})
->select('ref_code',\DB::raw('MAX(id) as ID'))
->groupBy('ref_code')
->pluck('ID');
Now, Get Items as
$items = Inventory::whereIn('id',$ids)->get();
Hence you will get your desired result.