Getting distinct rows from paginated result set in Laravel - php

Question

I have created the following for a product catelog/lister:
public function index($type_id = null) {
$filters = $sort = array();
if (isset($type_id)) {
$filters['type'] = $type_id;
} else {
$filters['type'] = Input::get('type');
}
$filters['search'] = Input::get('search');
$filters['brand'] = Input::get('brand');
$sort['sort'] = Input::get('sort');
$sort['sortdir'] = Input::get('dir');
$productsPaginated = $this->fetchProducts($filters, $sort);
return View::make('products.products', array(
'productsList' => $productsPaginated
)
);
}
public function fetchProducts($filters, $sorts, $perpage = 2) {
print_r($filters);
$Product = Product::query();
if (!empty($filters['search']))
$Product->where('name', 'LIKE', '%' . $filters['search'] . '%');
if (isset($filters['type']))
$Product->where('type_id', $filters['type']);
if (isset($filters['brand']))
$Product->where('brand_id', $filters['brand']);
if (isset($sorts['sort']))
$Product->orderBy($sorts['sort'], $sorts['sortdir']);
$Product = $Product->paginate($perpage);
return $Product;
}
Which works well so far.
I am now trying to create some filters so a user can further filter the results.
How can I access and determine distinct rows based on a column in:
$productsPaginated = $this->fetchProducts($filters, $sort);
?

Answer 1

The groupBy method not only exists on the query builder but also on the collection class. (which will be returned when calling paginate)
Take a look at the source on github
So add an argument to your function and use groupBy
public function fetchProducts($filters, $sorts, $perpage = 2, $groupBy = null) {
// code omitted for brevity
$Product = $Product->paginate($perpage);
if($groupBy){
$Product = $Product->groupBy($groupBy);
}
return $Product;
}
Update
Then there's the lists function that works on collections as well as on query builders...
$Product->lists('column-name');
Update 2
I was curious so I did some testing and a found something very weird and I have no idea if its a bug or a feature I don't understand
When calling groupBy the collection returned has actually only one item (index "") and this item contains an array of the "original" items. So to make lists work. I found this workaround
$Product = $Product->groupBy($groupBy);
$Product = new Collection($Product[""]); // \Illuminate\Support\Collection
$Product = $Product->lists('column-name');