Multiple Fields with a GroupBy Statement in Laravel - mysql

Question

Already received a great answer at this post
Laravel Query using GroupBy with distinct traits
But how can I modify it to include more than just one field. The example uses pluck which can only grab one field.
I have tried to do something like this to add multiple fields to the view as such...
$hats = $hatData->groupBy('style')
->map(function ($item){
return ['colors' => $item->color, 'price' => $item->price,'itemNumber'=>$item->itemNumber];
});
In my initial query for "hatData" I can see the fields are all there but yet I get an error saying that 'colors', (etc.) is not available on this collection instance. I can see the collection looks different than what is obtained from pluck, so it looks like when I need more fields and cant use pluck I have to format the map differently but cant see how. Can anyone explain how I can request multiple fields as well as output them on the view rather than just one field as in the original question? Thanks!

Answer 1

When you use groupBy() of Laravel Illuminate\Support\Collection it gives you a deeper nested arrays/objects, so that you need to do more than one map on the result in order to unveil the real models (or arrays).
I will demo this with an example of a nested collection:
$collect = collect([
collect([
'name' => 'abc',
'age' => 1
]),collect([
'name' => 'cde',
'age' => 5
]),collect([
'name' => 'abcde',
'age' => 2
]),collect([
'name' => 'cde',
'age' => 7
]),
]);
$group = $collect->groupBy('name')->values();
$result = $group->map(function($items, $key){
// here we have uncovered the first level of the group
// $key is the group names which is the key to each group
return $items->map(function ($item){
//This second level opens EACH group (or array) in my case:
return $item['age'];
});
});
The summary is that, you need another loop map(), each() over the main grouped collection.